The nine-man crew of Team Vestas Wind dramatically grounded their boat after ploughing into a reef on St Brandon archipelago in the Indian Ocean on Saturday and were forced to abandon it in the early hours of Sunday, before wading through knee-deep water to a dry position described as little more than a sand pit in the middle of the ocean. No one was injured in the collision and the crew managed to take sail ropes, fluids, electronics and hardware from the boat.
The reef is riddled full of sharks and barracuda and the team's shore crew chief Neil Cox said the guys came across a fisherman out there who had been basically mauled by a barracuda, 'with barely much left of him to deal with'.
While stranded, the crew received food packages via an airdrop from a coastguard plane. They were later picked up by a coastguard rib and taken to the nearby Ile du Sud, an almost deserted islet, with no communications with the outside world.
From there, they planed to fly to Abu Dhabi. Twice-Olympian Nicholson is quoted as saying that a 'mistake' had been responsible for the collision with the reef.
The team and race organisers are working out the best way to recover the boat, Volvo Ocean 65. The picture above was taken by The National Coast Guard of the Maritime Rescue Co-operation Centre of Mauritius as part of its usual operations after such an incident.
