A 62-year-old French man survived 16 hours adrift at sea thanks to the air bubble that formed under his boat after his sailboat capsized in the Atlantic Ocean, the Spanish coast guard reported Wednesday after his rescue.
"On the edge of the impossible, in an operation against the clock, with rough seas, [and] at night", the emergency teams managed to save the life of the navigator, identified as Laurent Camprubi.
Camprubi (right) poses with the head of Salvamento Marítimo Finisterre, Manuel Capeáns, and the overturned sailboat in the seaport of Oza. Moncho Fuente / EFE
The 40-foot-long (12-meter) sailboat
Jeanne Solo Sailor
sent out a distress signal shortly before 8:30 p.m. Monday night (2 p.m. on the East Coast), when it was 14 miles from the Sisargas Islands, off the Galicia region in northwestern Spain, according to NBC News.
The ship had set sail from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, on Sunday morning, according to the Reuters news agency.
Salvamento Marítimo, the Spanish rescue agency, located the overturned sailboat, but had to stop the operation due to rough seas, according to the La Sexta television network.
A team of special operations and divers reactivated the mission the next day.
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"A rescuer goes down to the hull, hits and receives a response signal. Then we know that there is someone there," Vicente Cobelo, special operations technician for Maritime Rescue, told La Sexta.
The man was knee-deep in water and very nervous, but he responded to instructions to leave the sailboat.
"He himself submerged himself and in apnea he came out accompanied by the divers, who pulled him because with the survival suit it was very difficult for him to get out," said Cobelo, about the outfit against hypothermia.
In a video shared on social networks by the coastguard, it can be seen how a rescuer descends to the hull of the sailboat and crouches, seeming to knock to listen for signs of life.
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"The problem is that he couldn't get out of the boat," Camprubi himself revealed to the Antena 3 television network. "It was full of water and he only had 30 or 40 centimeters of air" to breathe, he assured.
"When we go out, we hug each other like we're family. I can't thank you enough for the work you do, saving lives like that," he said of his rescue.
"Each life saved is our greatest reward," the coast guard said.
