Pierre has been sailing his Sun Fizz for many years. He knows his sailboat like the back of his hand. On board, he has almost completely rebuilt it and, a bit of a maniac, he maintains it with care. This boat is his retirement that he has just celebrated with a tour of the Atlantic in 2019/2020. In spite of good nautical skills and a skilled diver, he will have a "funny" adventure, a stupid accident that could have cost him his life. He recounts this misadventure that almost went very badly:
Cruising in the Glénan, crossing to the Golden Islands, crossing the trade winds or round the world via the three capes: each navigation is a commitment which is not without risks, and the skippers strive to minimise them: weather monitoring, well thought-out safety equipment, shoes on deck and on the windlass, boom restraint downwind, harness, waistcoat, oilskin in the galley when the sea hardens. The list is long and the boats have many surprises in store for you..
The misadventure that happened to me does not appear in the textbooks and, if only for that reason, deserves to be told. It proves once again (there are infamous examples) that experience should never - ever! - allow a relaxation of attention..
A winter in the West Indies
It happened in January 2020 in the West Indies where I arrived in mid-December with my venerable Sun Fizz after an uneventful transat. I spent the Christmas and New Year holidays in Martinique with Sylvie, my wife, my daughter Ninon and a couple of friends. They all left me a few days ago to go to the metropolis, their professional or student life and the rigours of winter. I am therefore alone on board until the next holidays in February. It doesn't bother me, on the contrary: I've already done a solo Atlantic tour a quarter of a century ago and this newfound solitude is like a bath of youth.
A windy Martinique Saint Lucia crossing
Rich of a few weeks, I decide to join Trinidad by jumping quietly from one island to another then to make a more direct return to Pointe-à-Pitre where I must meet Sylvie before leaving to the North. On January 10, the full facts, I leave the bay of St. Anne and point the bow on St. Lucia that we guess in the distance. Accentuated by the Venturi effect created by the two islands, the tradewind is sustained with peaks of over 35 knots. As a precaution, I've already folded up the cockpit bimini... So far there's nothing nasty. It's only the short swell on the beam which is causing the pilot a bit of discomfort, as his computer has always been a bit weak; despite the reefs, he's stalling and forcing me to take the helm. It's not unpleasant and won't last: we're sailing at over eight knots surrounded by spray and shearwaters..
A bar line that breaks
Before leaving Marseille, my home port, I took care to check everything: mast and rigging are new, the engine has been overhauled and a cruise in Greece the previous summer enabled me to correct the last weak points. However, out of negligence (and also because a total change is not easy to carry out on a Sun Fizz), I made do with a visual inspection and lubrication of the steering system lines. This is a mistake, because, Murphy's principle being as inescapable as Archimedes', one of them chose precisely to release in the middle of the channel. That's okay. The pilot, whose jack works directly on the sector, allows me to immediately regain control of the boat and rig the (ridiculously short) emergency tiller to get back on course..
Find out what's broken
A few hours later, my arms and shoulders a little tired, I arrive at Rodney Bay, a huge beach north of St. Lucia where I drop anchor on the sand at a depth of five or six metres. The sea is flat as a hand and my closest neighbour is a good hundred metres away: we don't risk touching each other! I send out the anchor ball and the Q flag as it should be, and then, without taking the time to redeploy the bimini, frankly curious, I'm about to check whether the line is indeed broken or whether it's, as I hope, just a cable tie to be taken back. It's mid-afternoon and I promise myself, after all this, a welcome swim before the shower..
At the bottom of the trunk to repair
To access the helm area, I have to empty the boot that serves as the helmsman's seat and remove the bottom. But before I do that, I first have to remove a storage box for the gas bottles I've fitted out. It's fitted with a vent pipe which joins the original one in the port locker. After emptying the latter, equipped with a screwdriver and a headlamp, I slide in to loosen the collar... On the yachts of that era, the boot covers are fitted with simple padlock hinges: a brass plate pierced with a light which folds down onto the handle fixed against the cockpit wall. Of course, I've got snap hooks on the lines to secure the hoods in the open position, but we're on a real lake... I'll only be three minutes... Negligence? Unconsciousness?
Locked in the trunk!
You can easily guess what happens next: a small roll, probably caused by a dinghy passing by, and, oops, the bonnet falls down, the padlock hinge swings in an elegant rotation and closes on the roll bar. Slam! Everything goes black! I'm locked in my port aft locker, alone on board, in 35°C in the shade in the middle of the Rodney Bay anchorage. Brassens, in his song for Marinette, described perfectly what I looked like with my lamp on my forehead and my little screwdriver in my hand..
In this kind of situation (I have the unpleasant impression of being a laboratory rat observed by a teasing ethologist), the first visceral reaction is to scramble all over the place. Animal, that's what I do. For nothing. The nuts of the hinge-lock bolts are either hidden by the overhang or embedded in polyester. I'm looking at the hinges on the top side, same thing. The only thing I manage to do is to break my screwdriver trying to spread the bottom of the hood. Dirt... I start sweating, the air becomes heavy and sticky. Luckily, I'm not claustrophobic and more than forty years of diving have taught me how to live in a confined space (a few weeks later, three-quarters of the world will have to get into it, but that's another story...), but still: I don't see the next few hours with an optimistic eye, cowering in a trunk where I can neither lie nor stand upright, with no water and minimal ventilation. Time passes..
Thoughts..
Second phase under the watchful eye of the decidedly perverse ethologist: I settle down and think. My Iridium-Go is on its way and my relatives know to the nearest meter where I am. Yes, but that doesn't do me much good, because it will take at least forty-eight hours before they get worried. Maybe even a little more... And what will they imagine? A broken cell phone? After all, I'm at anchor in a quiet corner... By the time I realise that I do have a problem, by the time I've set up a safety procedure, I'll have to wait at least seventy-two hours. And again... Well... I've put on the yellow flag, maybe the customs officers will come by? I don't have a watch, but from the looks of it, the offices must be closed already. We're in the Caribbean. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, the gabelous have mastered the subtle art of overtime. Not until tomorrow... If they come... What if I scream? All right, then. I'll scream. In vain: I might as well save my breath, the wind is blowing, the neighbours are too far away... What can I do? The gas bottle? I go back to the first phase of agitation by dismantling it and its tap, which I try to use as a lever. The tap breaks. This is the only time in my life as a sailor where I reproach the Jeanneau shipyard for having built a little too strong... We didn't cry over the material in 1980... Even the cabin side bulkhead is indestructible. I take the gas bottle and knock like a deaf man on the bottom of the bonnet, but I'm cramped and my movements aren't wide enough. Inefficient, useless and tiring. The air gets even thicker and my mouth becomes pasty. The minutes stretch out, long and sticky. I'm sweating profusely..
Anxiety..
And to think that my phone is less than ten feet away, prominently placed on the chart table! I can confess it today: sneakily, anxiety is winning me over. Do I have any other choice than to wait for a hypothetical rescue? In twenty-four or forty-eight hours (I don't dare to consider any more), what state will I be in? An image strikes me. I remember, as a diver lost by the surface boat, drifting for nearly six hours on the Geyser bank in the Mozambique Channel. The first land was more than fifty miles away and we were in the early eighties. At that time there were no signal parachutes, let alone electronic tracking devices. I was afraid, but what could I do? Waiting, saving myself and remembering all the good times. I had then listed and rehashed all the people, places and dishes that I had loved. A technique to avoid thinking the worst. Finally, I was recovered at nightfall thanks to my camera flash that I activated at regular intervals. That evening, as I climbed up the parrot ladder of the old tuna boat that was rolling in the swell of the open sea, I was born a second time thanks to the eagle eye of a young Malagasy sailor. Today, even without the threat of longfin sharks, I realize that my situation is much worse because nobody is looking for me?
Action..
It is said that there are two kinds of stress: good and bad. The annihilating one and the saving one. Spurred on by a strong survival instinct, I forget my positive lists to enter a third phase, that of rage. I feel like screaming. This is so stupid! There's got to be a solution! I'm then aware that I have to try everything before I'm exhausted by dehydration. It's now or never. With my back resting along the length of the hull (across, that would be impossible), my legs folded over me, my feet flat against the horizontal part of the hood, I decide to give it all I've got. The position is not ideal (if I dare say so), as the hull is naturally very sloping in its rear part and I won't work symmetrically. Too bad. I'm breathing well and forcing the first time. Nothing to worry about. A second time. Nothing yet. This time, Pierrot, this is the last, the rat must get out of his cage. I put in my thighs everything I can ... Good, evil and all my guts. I want out! My legs are shaking, a pain crosses my lumbar ... I force as if it were a third birth and suddenly the lock is loose! Then, struck with astonishment, my breath is short, I see the sky and the little clouds that are pinkish. My vertebrae are in compote, it doesn't matter: a whiff of happiness invades me.
The lock's been released!
Now that the months have passed, I am unable to assess the length of my confinement. An hour, maybe two? When I got up, the sun was already low. With difficulty, I stepped over the edge of the cockpit and saw that the lock had simply broken in the part bolted to the hood. Probably tired from the screwdriver and tap blows, the mounting plate tore off, the screw holes being welcome starters for a break. After this quick observation, bent like an old man, I swallowed the contents of a water bottle and took a swim. The water was blue, warm and diaphanous. Finally, more quietly, I prepared a planter that I felt and tasted as if it contained the destiny of the universe. And I believe it did. Despite a ruined back, I was happy, I was alive.
Moral: always insure the doors of your safes..
Pierre Martin-Razi
