French multihull solo sailor triggers alarm after capsize off Brazil
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 28 Jan 2014
La Mauricienne - Prince de Bretagne Marcel Mochet
French multihull sailor, Lionel Lemonchois, has triggered his EPIRB after capsizing the Maxi80 trimaran Prince de Bretagne while attempting to break the Mauriceienne record from Port-Louis in France to Port-Louis in Mauritius.
He was in his 11th day at sea trying to break the record of Francis Joyon, when the trimaran capsized about 800nm of the Brazilian coast at the latitude of Rio de Janeiro. He was sailing in a SE breeze of 16-18kts at the time of the incident.
Initially nothing was heard from the highly experience trans-oceanic sailor.
But after triggering the beacon in the middle of the afternoon, 800 miles off the Brazilian coast on Monday, Lemonchois had a brief telephone contact with his support team that evening. He advised them that his multihull capsized and he was safe inside the central hull after releasing the rig to relieve the boat.
No details of how his rescue will be attempted have been announced.
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