Italian skipper Ambrogio Beccaria has arrived in the Azores after a violent and spectacular fall aboard his IMOCA Allagrande Mapei forced him out of the Route du Rhum. He has no fracture, but is suffering a severe muscular contusion to the rib cage.
He spoke candidly about the ordeal and what comes next.
"My mind couldn't immediately make the leap to say: that's it, the race is over," Beccaria said. "I told myself I'd bear away a bit, slow down, and maybe see in 24 hours if the pain passed. But after six or seven hours, I realised I couldn't even turn a winch handle, even in calm conditions. I still had three or four days of sailing ahead with strong winds. Continuing would have been absolutely dangerous and senseless. I could no longer aim for the podium, and above all, I had no desire to simply get to the finish. We weren't there just to finish a race."
A different kind of challenge began from there.
"From that moment, another race began," he said. "I still had to reach a port, because I was alone on a boat that remains, frankly, a wild machine. I had 580 miles ahead of me to reach the Azores, a little over two days of sailing. With this pain, I couldn't manage any manoeuvre on my own. I did manage to take in a reef, that was an endless mission. Thankfully, I was then able to follow a route that didn't require too many manoeuvres, and reach Horta."
Despite the abrupt end, Beccaria praised the boat itself.
"The boat delivered fantastic performance," he said. "We saw just how incredibly well we'd worked all year. We had a perfect machine, one of the fastest in the fleet, as we proved over the first two days. It's a small victory for the team. For as long as it lasted, the race lived up to its name: intense, as the Route du Rhum always is. Even though the start was entirely downwind, on these boats running downwind is almost more intense than upwind. You're sailing at 30 knots constantly, and it's exhausting on board."
He found a measure of perspective on YouTube.
"During my sail to the Azores, I watched a documentary on Florence Arthaud," Beccaria said. "She competed four times before winning it. That means I've still got time."
