In 2008, Luc is doing Mini 6.50. His boat is based in Port Camargue, in the Mediterranean, and he participates every year in the early season races in Italy. And that year, he is preparing to take part in the Grand Prix d'Italia 6.50, a 520-mile double-handed race in which he already took part the previous year.
After a delivery trip between the south of France and Genoa, the starting port of the race, he is ready to take the start at the end of April. Except that this year, his usual crew member - co-owner of his boat - was unable to come. He will therefore be teaming up with a new Italian crew member, Gianluca, with whom he has never sailed before.
The start is given: Genova -Giglio -Genova -Gallinara -Gorgona -Genova.
Unfortunately, Luke is about to experience what might have been his last memory. It's 7:00 p.m. on April 21 or 22 and his crew member is inside the boat. "I don't know if he was asleep." entrusts Luc to us. While he is not tied up - he has just lowered the gennaker - a wave bigger than the others hits the front of the 6.50 m sailboat.
"The boat lifted up, I took off and I found myself in the air, and when I fell back down, the boat had shifted and I fell on the spinneret, but with half my body on the wrong side", explains Luc. Luc tips over and finds himself in the water, a little before Elba Island, the gennaker still in his arms. "That's funny, 'cause I fell into the wind, when you usually fall into the wind." luke argues. He's screaming.
In his misfortune, as he slid along the hull he managed to grab the spinnaker sheet on the windward freeboard side, which he wrapped around his arm and found himself dragged by the boat. On his belly, still with the gennaker rolled in his hands, he sank and found himself in apnea. He finally manages to turn over on his back and realises that he is coming to the surface. Still with his sail in hand, he screams again.
His boat then stops facing the wind. " Either with the NKE remote or my partner." details Luc. He then manages to hang on to the transom - finally puts his sail in the cockpit - and manages to pull himself up by the force of his arms, passing between the two rudders, boots and oilskins full of water. "The energy of desperation, you don't think. I think in the end I didn't even spend 60 seconds in the water. But to realize that I could breathe again, I got the transom back and I got grimpé?!" entrusts Luc to us.
"I found myself in less than 30 seconds in the cockpit, soaking wet, with my arm lacerated at the end." supports Luc.
With no dry clothes - except for a few fleeces - he changes to put on his GST. Frozen, it will take him more than 20 hours to warm up, "probably psychological shock."
He will finish the race and arrive rather late - "I didn't really perform well" - greeted by a hedge of honour of minists waiting for them at the port. " I had warned everyone on the VHF that I was on board and everyone was there for us. That's the Mini." explains Luc.
If this experience could have been fatal to him, Luke learns from it. "It ended well. I realized that I made a lot of mistakes. Stupidly, you go to the front without holding on, without asking your team-mate to be on standby, because the conditions are good, despite a lopsided swell. But the boat was under-canvassed and so "it was a bit stuffy", almost at a standstill, as I had just rolled the gennaker and was preparing to send the genoa out by freeing it from the lines and taking advantage of that to bring the gennaker back. And it took a wave... In April, night falls quickly and it was already 7pm, the water is cold, even in the Mediterranean and if you're not found right away, you're dead. I was saved by this spinnaker sheet", concludes Luc.
