Anchorage pile-up
"We recently experienced one of the worst moments of our lives. While we were sleeping (at anchor editor's note) our boat was involved in an accident that shook us to the core. We are incredibly grateful for the messages and support we have received following this ordeal.
While we gather our wits and try to come to terms with this incident, we ask for your patience, as we need time to concentrate and step back from the situation.
No one was hurt, and we're very relieved. However, the damage to our yacht is very extensive, and our sailing trip has been suspended indefinitely. We will give more details when the time comes, but we are aware that an article containing inaccuracies about the accident is circulating in Japan. We ask for your understanding while we deal with these discrepancies in information and the legal difficulties they cause."
Stopped dead in their tracks
Sailing La Vagabonde was cruising the Seto Sea, an inland sea between the islands of Honsh?, Shikoku and Ky?sh?, home to the city of Hiroshima, which they had just visited.
Over the last few weeks, the crew have been introducing us to the Japanese yachting scene: marinas empty of sailboats and not at all expensive, cumbersome paperwork but always friendly and welcoming officials, breathtaking scenery, abundant marine biodiversity and successive typhoons at this time of year, which their trimaran always managed to dodge with a head start. They had chosen to stay in Japan until spring, to introduce their children, who only know the warmth of the tropics, to snow and the joys of winter, and to see the famous cherry blossom season.
Since 2014, the Sailing La Vagabonde crew has never been stopped in its tracks. Riley Whitelum is obsessed with speed and wants to get his little family from one country to another as quickly as possible. As soon as he bought the Rapido, he was already eyeing Francis Joyon's former Idec. The boat has been lying derelict in China since the death of its owner, Guo Chuan, a Chinese sailor with a passion for sailing who bought Idec from Francis Joyon in order to set records. Guo Chan disappeared during a record attempt for the Pacific crossing from San Francisco to Yokohama. Since then, the former Idec Sport, renamed Quingdao, has been orphaned and has been sleeping in a San Francisco harbor. At the time of the accident, Riley Whitelum was in the middle of negotiations with the Chinese authorities to find out under what conditions he could acquire the boat. He wanted to replace Qiingdao's central hull with that of his current Rapido, to sail even faster and further.
All that is now in jeopardy, and we'll be waiting for the next news to find out how this family of Australian sailors will continue their adventures.
