The 28ft French vessel was spotted on Sunday by Alfie and Ceylan Moore, who were sailing across the Atlantic on the ARC+ rally with friend Stu Finch and Alfie’s mum Adele Jeal. They were 140 miles away from Grenada when they saw something unusual on the horizon.
“It was tiny, beam-on, and rolling around in the swell,” skipper Alfie told PBO. “At first we thought it was a fishing boat, but something was sticking out the back. When we got the binoculars we realised it was the windex of a sailing boat, but there was no mast. There was a pole hanging over the side.”
The French skipper was exhausted and had been drifting for three days. Photo Ceylan Moore
Alfie saved the position on the GPS. They dropped the sails of Coco, their 40ft Fontaine Pajot catamaran, and raced as fast as they could towards the vessel. As they approached they saw a man thought to be in his 50s waving a pink cloth. They tried to communicate with him by VHF, but got no response. They circled around him a couple of times to assess the situation and saw the man was in a bad way.
“It was as though he had given up, he was ready to die and had accepted his fate,” said Alfie, “but then the adrenaline kicked in and he managed to hold up three fingers, which we assumed meant he’d been drifting for three days.”
They had difficulty communicating with the man, and tried to persuade him to come aboard and abandon the dismasted yacht. However, each time Alfie beckoned to the man, he shook his head. They were left with no choice but to tow him.
The French skipper put a fender on a line and drifted it towards Coco. Stu, an experienced delivery skipper, picked it up and tied it to the cleat. The minute the boat was attached, the French skipper fell to his knees in tears.
However, there was a great deal of snatch on the lines, and Alfie was concerned the port stern cleat would not be able to withstand the loads.
They emptied the lockers to find all the lines they could, laid them out in the cockpit, and rigged a bridle to distribute the loads, with fenders attached to the lines to keep them away from the props.
The lines were too short, and the crew feared that at any minute the yacht would surf down a wave and hit them. Twice the lines snapped before sunset, as seen in this dramatic video taken by Adele. The crew remained calm throughout and just got on with the job.
“We smiled for the first time in the 26 hours,” added Adele.
The crew all had a shower to try to relax, but every time they came off a wave, found themselves wincing, waiting for the sensation of the lines snatching and the boat being tugged back!
The French yacht was taken to Prickly Bay and Coco was met by the staff at Camper & Nicholsons Port Louis Marina, and given a rum punch.
The shattered crew of Coco arrive in Camper and Nicholsons Port Louis Marina, Grenada after the 26-hour rescue. Photo: Arthur Daniel/ World Cruising Club
“It was very good, and definitely worth coming to Grenada for the rum punch,” said Alfie this morning. “We’re going to have lunch now, and clean and tidy the boat tomorrow and assess the damage. The ARC massively helped us in the last part. It’s nice having people we can rely on ashore. Overall it was a great passage, a great crossing. We’re here in the Caribbean now and we can relax.”
As we went to press, the crew of Coco were recovering from their ordeal over lunch in the marina bar, and the French skipper, known only as David, was still onboard his yacht on a mooring buoy in St George, Grenada.
Charlotte Fairhead of Grenada Tourism visited David, who had a cut leg, but otherwise said he was well. As he isn’t vaccinated against Covid he’s confined to his boat whilst waiting for an exemption from Grenada’s Chief Medical Officer.
“He’s fine, he said he didn’t need medical assistance and has plenty of water and supplies,” said Charlotte. “He did ask for cigarettes. He confirmed he was on a three week-passage from French Guyana when he was dismasted and lost his rig.”
Alfie and Ceylan got married in July and plan to spend the next 5-10 years sailing the world. After 6 years spent renovating boats, shops and houses, they left London and sailed their 33ft Colvic Countess from the UK to Greece, before buying a Fountaine Pajot catamaran. You can follow Coco’s adventures on their YouTube channel Sailing Coco
