SABORDS, Born from a Storm

Atlantic Crossing – The Bay of Biscay

Prologue — Why I Ended Up on This Boat

At the time, many sailboats were purchased for tax purposes before being used in the Caribbean tourism industry.

Shipyards were operating at full capacity. Skippers were in high demand and were constantly looking for crew members to help deliver these brand-new boats across the Atlantic. Most Caribbean deliveries left during the winter, when the prevailing winds were more favorable.

I answered a small classified ad published in Voiles et Voiliers, a well-known French sailing magazine. A few days later, a meeting was arranged at the Paris Boat Show on December 6.

The arrangement was simple: everyone would pay for their own food, and we would all share the same goal—crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

I was just an inexperienced crew member.

I first saw the boat at the docks in Port-la-Vie.

It was an Oceanis 500.

The boat had only just left the Beneteau shipyard and was completely new. Some of the deck equipment was still covered in protective shipping foam.

I became familiar with the boat while helping complete the final preparations.

When someone was needed to be hoisted to the top of the 56-foot mast, I volunteered. From up there, I could see the Atlantic waiting for us.

I discovered wheel steering during a short trip a few miles offshore. I followed the captain’s instructions, watched carefully, and took the wheel for a while.

There were four of us on board: the skipper, his partner, another crew member, and me.

The Weather Window

After many long days of waiting, frost had formed on the inside of the portholes.

It was late December 1997, and we had already been stuck in port for ten days because of the weather.

At last, a weather window appeared to be opening.

The skipper decided it was time to leave.

It was December 30, 1997.

I had just blown out the candles on my twentieth birthday cake. Half an hour after leaving the harbor, I shared that cake with the fish.

We were now committed to crossing the Bay of Biscay.

The following day, the skipper became sick.

I barely saw him again. Seasickness had confined him to his cabin. He was completely out of action.

His partner took command of the boat, and from that moment on, she was the one who led us.

The other crew member had sailing experience in Brittany, and I trusted them both.

There were now only three of us left to handle the boat.

The Oceanis 500 was a big boat.

It felt safe and solid. It was wide and heavy, almost like a large truck.

With every wave, the boat accelerated. At times, we surfed at close to nine knots.

Standing at the wheel, I felt as though I were driving an enormous truck through a roller coaster.

I took my watch at dawn.

Inside the boat, even the smallest movement became difficult.

Every handhold was used. Nothing remained stable. We almost walked along the walls using our hands.

The sound of water rushing along the bulkhead beside my cabin soothed me, almost like returning to the womb.

Sleeping wedged into a corner became the only real option.

At times, I felt almost weightless.

My cabin was located in the bow, and whenever the front of the boat dropped into a trough, I was lifted more or less violently from my bunk.

Night Watch

A World of Lights

Night Crossing in the Bay of Biscay

By the second evening, the waves had grown even larger.

To keep the bow from crashing into the troughs, we approached each wave at an angle. The boat constantly zigzagged through the swell, but it kept moving forward.

Outside, it was nothing but spray after spray.

We lowered our hooded heads and let the freezing water hit us. Our eyes were constantly soaked, making it even harder to see. The air grew colder by the hour.

In the moonless darkness, distances disappeared.

The waves became nothing more than black moving walls.

Each time the boat dropped into a trough, the stars vanished below the horizon.

Then, without warning, a breaking wave swept my feet off the deck.

The weight of the water, combined with the boat's sudden heel, threw me completely off balance.

For a brief instant, I was hanging from the wheel.

Only one thought echoed through my mind:

"Don't let go... Don't let go..."

Like a window slamming shut in the wind...

...our weather window had just closed behind us.

Three High-Risk Steps

Watch changes had now become one of the most dangerous moments on board.

The challenge was simple in theory:

Leave the companionway...

Walk ten feet across the cockpit...

Clip your safety tether onto the jackline before the next wave arrived.

One violent storm was all it took for everything to go wrong.

That short walk was the moment I felt most vulnerable.

Inside the cabin, there were handrails, grab bars, and solid handholds everywhere.

Outside, those few steps exposed us to the sea.

At night, falling overboard would almost certainly mean disappearing forever.

The only priority was clipping in as fast as possible.

After a while, you begin to understand the language of the waves.

You learn to read their rhythm.

You start anticipating the movements they will force upon the boat.

As I took the wheel from the other crew member, he unclipped his tether and crossed the cockpit with the balance of a tightrope walker.

One day, he misjudged a violent lurch.

He was thrown headfirst into the gelcoat and broke his nose.

Even something as ordinary as going to the bathroom became one of the hardest parts of the day.

Back then, I wore ordinary boxer briefs.

Like most men, I needed both hands to use them.

But at sea, those two hands are often the only thing keeping you on your feet.

Inside a tiny marine head, letting go of your handholds—even for just a few seconds—can be enough to send you crashing into a bulkhead.

Fortunately, the walls are never far away.

Years later, experiences like this would lead me to invent the SABORDS system.

The White Sea

On the morning of January 3, I looked through the porthole.

The waves had disappeared.

In their place, the sea had turned completely white.

The dark swells were gone.

Their crests stretched into long streaks of windblown foam, like snow drifting across an Arctic plain during a blizzard.

From inside the cabin, the ocean looked entirely white.

It no longer resembled the Atlantic.

It looked like an endless frozen wilderness.

Going outside had become almost impossible.

The wind literally stole your breath.

I had to shield my face with one hand just to breathe.

There was no longer any hope of making progress.

The situation had become extreme.

We decided to run before the storm using an improvised sea drag.

Running Before the Storm

The goal of this maneuver was simple:

Keep the boat under control by reducing her speed and helping her remain aligned with the seas.

We tied a bucket to a long, heavy line and threw it overboard.

The line was secured to the bow.

Each time it came under tension, it burst out of the water before disappearing once again beneath the breaking waves.

For the next two days, we simply let the boat run with the storm.

There was nothing else we could do.

During the night, a seagull suddenly flew down the companionway into the cabin.

Terrified and exhausted, it landed on the saloon table...

...and promptly vomited a sardine.

Driven far offshore by the storm, it had found refuge aboard our boat.

Living With the Storm

We took advantage of those two days to eat...

...and sleep.

Even the simplest tasks had become dangerous.

One day, I leaned over a pot in the galley to check whether the water had started to boil.

At that exact moment, the boat lurched violently.

The pot jerked forward.

A sheet of hot water splashed into my face.

Fortunately, it had not yet reached a full boil.

Even a saucepan seemed capable of joining the storm.

That was when I truly realized something.

Out there, even the smallest accident could quickly become a serious one.

Food became pure comfort.

Sleep did too.

When I wake up, I immediately notice that the sound of the water against my cabin has changed. The heavy thuds are gone, replaced by a long, continuous hiss flowing along the hull.

I don't even have to look outside—I already know. We're moving again. We're back underway.

Flying fish leaped from wave to wave. Beneath the surface, the white hull seemed to frighten them. As they launched out of the troughs, some landed directly on deck.

They left scales everywhere, those strange little birds of the sea.