Movistar, the Spanish entry in the Volvo Ocean Race — one of the top professional events in world sailing — was travelling at high speed towards the English Channel when structural failures caused water to flood in.

With a forecast of storm force 10 winds peaking at more than 50 knots expected to hit the area, Bouwe Bekking, the Dutch skipper, decided that the only course of action was to abandon ship.

The nearest boat was another entry in the Volvo race, ABN Amro Two, skippered by Seb Josse, the French yachtsman, which turned round and bashed her way towards the stricken Spanish yacht. Ten crew members were transferred using liferafts.

Bekking, who was one of the last to leave his boat, was full of praise for the team on ABN Amro Two, which includes Simon Fisher, the British navigator. “Seb and his crew have been fantastic,” he said.

“We all realised that turning around had been a very hard call for them, and hopefully they can find a little comfort that they have saved ten lives.”

For the team on ABN Amro Two, a yacht with mainly young sailors on board who were picked to take part in the race because of their outstanding potential, the leg from New York to Portsmouth — the seventh out of nine in the race — has turned into a nightmare.

Before the Movistar rescue they had had to deal with the trauma of watching one of their team-mates drown when he was swept off ABN Amro Two late last week, about a thousand miles further west of yesterday’s incident.

Hans Horrevoets, a 32-year-old Dutchman, was in the water in big breaking waves for 40 minutes before the crew could get him back on board, by which time he could not be revived. Since then his body has remained on the boat.

Last night ABN Amro Two continued towards the Channel shepherded by HMS Mersey, the Royal Navy fishery protection vessel, which was scrambled to rendevous with the yacht.

The drama in the Atlantic is the latest in a series of crises to hit the Volvo race, which set sail from Spain in November. Since then, four of the six yachts in the fleet have suffered repeated technical failures, with Movistar among the worst affected.

The latest dramas come as senior Volvo race executives assess whether to sell the event to a new sponsor or to continue with another edition in four years’ time.

So far the word from the race headquarters in Southampton is that the safety-conscious car manufacturer is not going to be deterred by recent events and will continue its association with the race.

Out on the Atlantic, meanwhile, Movistar, which cost several million pounds to build, has been left to her own devices for now.

These include the generator, which has been left running to power her satellite positioning systems so that the boat can be tracked and eventually recovered.

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