No Man Left Behind, Especially If There Are Sharks and Barracudas

On November 30, Team Vestas Wind, a nine member ocean sailing crew, was stuck in shark and barracuda infested waters in the middle of the Indian Ocean. While sailing from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi in the second leg of the around-the-world Volvo Ocean Race, Vestas Wind ran aground on a shallow reef some 260 miles from the island of Mauritius. Their ship was stuck to the reef, damaged, and began to take on water. The nearest help, approximately 50 miles away, was also one of their competitors: Team Alvimedica.

"We received a call from the race organizers saying that Vestas was up on the reef and that we were the closest boat," Alvimedica skipper Charlie Enright told me via the magic of IsatPhone technology from the middle of the Indian Ocean. Despite their competitiveness, Team Alvimedica didn't give the moment a second's thought. "We're our own support networks out here and I think it was never in question to do the right thing," Enright told me. "It's fairly obvious."

Alvimedica, which had already been discussing the best way to circumvent the reef, adjusted their course towards Vestas Wind's position. Vestas Wind's crew abandoned ship and waded through knee-deep water to their raft, which they anchored to a rock for the night. Once nearby, Enright and his team positioned themselves about a mile and a half downwind from Vestas Wind in case their raft lost its anchor and they drifted into the ocean.

Vestas Wind's immediate concern, however, was communication: the damage to their ship meant that their only way to contact the outside world was via handheld radios. Once Alvimedica set up downwind from Vestas Wind, they scheduled check-ins every half hour via radio and relayed updates to the Ocean Race headquarters and the local coast guard.

The next morning, the coast guard arrived and took Vestas Wind's crew to a small, uninhabited island before advancing to Mauritius. The crew were unharmed.

After helping with the rescue operation for 12 hours, Alvimedica resumed the race. Although they hadn't gone far off course, they spent almost half a day stationary while other boats advanced north.

Upon arrival in Abu Dhabi, Team Alvimedica can ask for a redress from an independent jury of sailing officials, according to Volvo Ocean Race spokesman Robert Penner. There's no official protocol for whether Alvimedica would be compensated through a reduction of their official time or by points—each team gets the same number of points as their place in each leg (first place gets 1 point, etc.) and the lowest score at the end of the race wins—but they will almost certainly get something. Penner told me "it's likely that they could be compensated in some way that the jury finds is fair."

As of this writing, Team Alvimedica is in fourth place in the leg, 295 nautical miles from the leader, Team Brunel, which is 969 nautical miles from the finish.

For his part, Enright didn't sound too concerned about what the jury will decide, sounding as if he had faith they would make a fair decision. "They definitely don't want to discourage this kind of thing."