Marseille skipper Laurent Camprubi is a miracle. This Tuesday, the Spanish sea rescue services saved him from drowning while he remained stranded under the hull of his sailboat for 16 hours. It was then 22 kilometers off the coast of Galicia (Spain). “A rescue at the limit of the impossible“, recognize the services of the Salvamento Maritimo on their Facebook page. In the middle of the qualifying course for the Route du Rhum 2022, the boat capsized in the Atlantic. Laurent Camprubi says that it only took a few moments for his sailboat turns around: “The sea was rough, difficult, with a wind of about thirty knots, but the boat was going well. I was resting in the cockpit when I hit the water violently: the boat started to tilt and I realized that I had lost the keel“, he told AFP.
A 30 centimeter pocket for breathing
Mobilized aboard a ship, supported by three helicopters, the Spanish rescuers managed to locate the sailboat approximately two hours after its accident : it was “the keel upside down” in the dark, tossed about by high waves, explains the Salvamento Maritimo. Dropped on the boat using a helicopter, one of the rescuers then knocks on the hull. He perceives “blows back“which make him understand”there’s someone stuck inside“, says the rescue service at sea. For the latter, it’s deliverance. “I knew they were there, but I had to hold on“, confides the navigator who remained alive all this time breathing in a pocket of air of 30 centimeters.
I feared for my loved ones and I don’t want that to happen again […] I’m going to put my Route du Rhum project on hold – Laurent Camprubi
The low, “I had a series of exams: I was at 34.5 degrees and very dehydrated, but I’m better now“, explains the skipper, who stayed in La Coruña to supervise the refloating of his boat. He is about to return to France to find his wife and children. “I’m going to put my Route du Rhum project on hold” but “I was afraid for my loved ones and I don’t want that to happen again“, confides the navigator, who has several victories in regattas, in particular on the Rolex Giraglia, in the Mediterranean.