Skipper Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, returning from the Med Max, a new sailing race between France and Morocco in which he was participating, came to the aid of a boat of migrants adrift in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday. On board there was a dead person, the navigator told Radio France’s sports department on Wednesday.
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The 45-year-old professional skipper, six times French F18 champion, crossed paths with this boat in difficulty on Monday October 7, 2024, while he was transporting his trimaran between Morocco and France. “We were returning from the Med Max where we had arrived in Saïdia (Morocco) and we took to the sea on Sunday evening towards Sainte-Maxime for the next race”entrusts the navigator to the newspaper Le Télégramme.
Monday morning, the sea is calm and the skipper’s trimaran is not moving very quickly. With his binoculars, one of his teammates sees a very small boat barely six meters long on the horizon. On board: sixteen people. Next to the boat, the navigators see a corpse, floating.
“We later understood that he was a 22-year-old diabetic young man and that he no longer had insulin to treat himself. He ended up dying”tells Thibaut Vauchel-Camus to the sports department of Radio France.
The crew then provides water and a little food to the survivors who have been drifting for several days. These survivors, out of gas, “all men and all Algerians” according to the skipper, had the ambition to reach Spain. Immediately after coming to the aid of the migrants, Thibaut Vauchel-Camus called emergency services in Spain who sent a lifeboat to bring them back to Andalusia.
However, according to the navigator, who is also a member of the support committee of the NGO SOS Méditerranée, this situation is untenable as many cargo ships have passed very close to the boat, without stopping. “When we see that we, sailors, professionals, we will take risks at sea, in all conscience, and that in the event of a problem there are very impressive means implemented to recover us”deplores the skipper. “Besides that, there are people who are adrift in front of everyone and for whom nothing is happening. That’s revolting.”
Thibault Vauchel-Camus associated with Yann Eliès, on the Ocean fifty Solidaires in a peloton, finished 6th in the Med Max, a sailing race in the Mediterranean between Port-Camargue in Gard and Saïda in Morocco. The race was won by Sébastien Rogue and Jean-Baptiste Gellée.
A few years ago, the navigator had already crossed paths with a makeshift boat. That day, it was empty.
