This is a translated story from last year, but still interesting!
On July 6, 2019, head to the Bahamas archipelago to find my Multi50 “Drekan Group” with which I capsized off the Azores, 18 months earlier during the Transat Jacques Vabre. I left alone, filled with emotions and uncertain about the purpose of this trip but confident in my destiny, as usual.
But let’s come back in February 2019. Around midnight, I receive the call from a friend based in Switzerland. He is at a trade fair in Amsterdam and thinks he has recognized my Multi50 trimaran on social networks . According to him, adrift, he would have arrived in the Bahamas archipelago, to the wind of the island of Eleuthera.
Impossible for me to sleep. I open Facebook and I come across a message from Roston McGregor , director and president of Vaillant Salvage , a towing and salvage company in the Bahamas, who tells me that I can intervene. The multihull is retained by a part of the rig to a few meters of rocks to windward of Eleuthera Island. Indeed, I discovered with surprise the photos and videos of my boat which seems in good condition despite its transatlantic drift, for as long.
The next day, a Friday, I call Thibaut George , the president of the Drekan Group , my partner and friend, who has been with me for over 10 years, to keep him informed of this news. We jointly decide to save the boat before it ends up in pieces on a paradise beach in the Bahamas.
On Saturday, the order is sent to Roston to secure and tow the boat. He will intervene the same day, barely a few hours before the piece of rigging which held him from the breakers fails. It will then be towed upside down in a protected cove , to put it at anchor and before studying the means and possibilities for the next steps. The trimaran looks in good condition in the photos, it’s miraculous. Read on.
