Le Cam's Rescue Boat Loses Mast Near Cape Horn

It has been anything but plain sailing for Jean le Cam in the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race this week. The Frenchman was rescued yesterday after being trapped inside the hull of his upturned boat for 16 hours, only to then witnessed his rescuer's boat lose its mast.

Vincent Riou's PRB was dismasted at 7.20pm yesterday, just over an hour after passing Cape Horn. Riou had rescued his fellow competitor Le Cam from his capsized boat and the two Frenchmen had been joking that they had made history in being the first two people in the Vendée Globe to round Cape Horn on the same boat, when the main rigging gave way and the mast went over the side.

Riou issued a radio call for help. It was answered by a Chilean Navy vessel, the 33-meter Alacalufe, which arrived on scene, seven miles north-west of Cape Horn, early today. Riou and Le Cam had already cut away the mast and rigging of PRB and there is no propulsive motor on the boat. Alacalufe made the rendezvous and took PRB in tow towards Puerto Williams, a Chilean naval base.

Riou described the dismasting when they reached Puerto Williams at 9.45am today: "We were in the process of manoeuvring to enter the Beagle Channel and the temporary chain plate that we had set up on the port side failed. The mast fell straight into the water. There was nothing we could do but leave it, as there were choppy seas. It was dangerous to try to do anything."

Riou had been forced into a repair to the chainplate, into which the main mast support rigging terminates, because of damage caused when rescuing Le Cam from his boat, VM Materiaux, and it was this that failed. Now their shore crews are on their way to Puerto Williams in order to attempt a rescue of VM Materiaux and to ship both boats to France.

Meanwhile the race leader Michel Desjoueaux, on Foncia, has separated on an east-west axis from second-placed Roland Jourdain's Veolia Environments by 250 miles, appearing to be making a long-term strategy for better wind, although Jourdain is slightly to the north. Britain's Samantha Davies on Roxy, now in fourth place, has almost 1,000 miles to go before she rounds Cape Horn.