This monohull yacht was designed by Jean Berret and Oliver Racoupeau for the French ocean sailer Mrs. Isabelle Autissier by Chantier Nautique Pinta at La Rochelle, France.
Carbon-epoxy hulled.
Length 18.28m.
1993 Delivered under the name ECUREUIL POITOU-CHARENTES 2
She set a new record when she in the spring of 1994 under skipper Isabelle Autissier with two crew sailed from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco making the passage in sixty-two days five hours and fifty-five minutes.
Then she sailed under skipper Isabelle Autissier when she left from Charleston, South Carolina as one of the 20 yachts in the 1994 -1995 “Around Alone Race” which is run every four years.
She won the first leg to Cape Town, South Africa, five days before her nearest competitor arrived.
During the second leg of the race to Sydney was she not so lucky when she lost in a gale her 25.3 metre long mast in the Southern Ocean. She jury-rigged a mast made of spinnaker poles and sailed to the Kerguélen Islands where she got a new mast.
Then she headed again for Sydney, slowly gaining on the other yachts, when on 28 December during a 60 knot wind and 10 metres waves under bare poles she was hit by a monster wave in which the yacht rolled 360 degree and lost her rigging and part of her deck in a position about 1000 miles from Sydney..
Luckily Autissier was not on deck otherwise she would have been washed away. She activated her two electronic positioning beacons, which signalled race officials in Charleston and the Australian Navy.
She was rescued on 01 January 1995 from her yacht by the Australian Navy frigate HMAS DARWIN.
The ECUREUIL POITOU CHARENTES 2 was never recovered.
French Southern and Antarctic Territories 1997 16f sg369, scottC141.
Source Various web-sites. http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/ns ... 00035.html
ECUREUIL POITOU-CHARENTES 2 yacht
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