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Vendee Globe 2016


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In the One News piece the other night I thought they said that at one point Conrad had fallen off the boat, and I really thought I might have mis-heard or misunderstood. But no, it really happened...

 

https://www.facebook.com/matthewsheahan880/posts/1236485209734470:0

 

When he arrived in Les Sables D’Olonne on Friday afternoon (24 Feb), battered and bruised flying a jury rig after being dismasted just 700 miles from the finish, the crowds turned out in their thousands. Touched by his engaging descriptions of a journey that had started with a fight simply to get to the start line, he was stopped and congratulated by passing strangers everywhere in the seaside town.

Yet there was one tale no one was expecting, not even his wife.

“I haven’t told anyone this yet,” he said at his press conference. “I fell overboard.”

There was silence in the room.

He stared out at the audience and swallowed as his gaze shifted momentarily to his feet, this was no PR stunt.

To a silent and dumbstruck audience he then described how at night, in a breezy Southern Ocean he had been on top of the boom, cradled by the mainsail lazy bag as he rearranged the sail when the lazy jacks broke.

“In a split second, the boom dropped into the water, I had no time to grab onto anything and was dumped into the sea. Fortunately, I was hooked on leaving me trailing behind the boom,” he said.

“I was too far away from the boat to get back on board, but eventually one of the waves swept me in sufficiently that I could grab hold of a stanchion. The trouble was that my harness was still clipped to the boom, preventing me from getting back aboard the boat.

“The only way to get back on board was to undo my harness, hang on to the stanchion with one arm and try to scramble back onto the boat. Fortunately I did it.”

The following day during a one to one interview with Conrad he expanded on his dark secret. 'Had the incident spooked him?' I asked.

“I don’t think so although I did tell one person, I had to, I had nearly died and I needed to tell someone about it. But the fact is that it had happened, what was I to do? I was still many miles from anywhere in the Southern Ocean. Even if I had decided enough was enough I still had to get back home.”

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