At 3:00 pm on Tuesday, July 9, the focus of the Transat Québec Saint-Malo is no longer on the result, on recovering positions and on sporting navigation, but suddenly shifts to the accident suffered by Acrobatica and Italian skipper Alberto Riva, together with his crew composed of Tommaso Stella and Jean Marre. There are no details or information on the dynamics, but the boat is adrift or probably sunk. The team boarded the life raft and was recovered yesterday at 3:00 pm by a “supertank”, a huge ocean-going vessel, en route to the United States. There is no direct news of the crew, only through the rescue system which, in addition to two merchant ships, involved the crew of E. Leclerc – Ville La Grand, the Class40 closest to Alberto Riva’s position when the safety systems were activated.
A fact that brings both ocean sailing back to its broader dimension, and a sigh of relief, because – according to the communications received – the team is safe and sound.
On the technical front of the regatta, Alberto Bona and the Class40 IBSA sailed energetically between July 8 and dawn on July 10, “catching by the tail” a depression and thus managing to recover even more miles. At 12:00 noon on July 10, IBSA was in seventh position, 59 miles from the leaders. While there are a thousand miles left to go and the crews begin to feel the air of Europe, the weather situation is destined to change and shuffle once again the cards, giving the teams new opportunities to attack.
“I am very sorry for what happened to Alberto [Riva]”, stated Alberto this morning. “We thought he had dismasted, but instead the epilogue was much worse. The important thing is that they’re all fine”. On the sporting front, Bona is satisfied with these last few days: “We have been listing thirty degrees for many hours, and we still have five sailing days ahead of us, but we are holding on; IBSA isn’t giving up! The miles we gained in the last three days gave us the energy we needed; we can still recover”.
