The following is reprinted from the Hobie Hotline (The HobieCat magazine, no
longer issued) May/June 1987

Editor's Note. The HOTLINE is printing the following story for two reasons. First, it
is a remarkable adventure, one of the most incredible journeys ever attempted on a
Hobie Cat and we would be remiss by not including it. We hope you enjoy it and thrill
with the sailors and their amazing achievement, a milestone in ocean crossings.

Secondly, it is also a warning. Hobie Cat and the HOTLINE do not endorse offshore
Hobie sailing. Hobie Cats were made to sail within sight of land whether in the ocean
or on a lake. Some specially controlled events such as the Hog's Breath 1000 include
offshore sailing, but the safety measures are extraordinary. Tony Laurent, profiled in
the January/February 1987 issue, is one of the most experienced Hobie sailors in the
world. Daniel Pradel is a seasoned French sailor and veteran of many races, including a
lot of Hobie sailing experience. The two men thought they were prepared. We hope
others who may be planning such adventures take note.

By Noelle Duck
_________________________________________________________

 Both passionate sailors had already gathered in victories and trophies. But they
dreamed of the impossible: traversing the Atlantic Ocean from Dakar, Senegal on
Africa’s west coast, to Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe, part of the French Antilles in the
Caribbean. An Atlantic crossing is always a touch and go affair in a sailboat, but Tony
Laurent and Daniel Pradel were going to try the journey on a Hobie 18 Magnum. They
left Dakar on November 12, 1986 at 8:30 in the morning. On a peaceful, windy Sunday
18 days later, a local sailor, Mr. Guegen, was doing some chores on his boat in the
Basse Terre Marina on Guadeloupe when he spotted two exhausted sailors gliding into
port. The impending arrival of the team had been announced by French Overseas
Radio, so Guegen knew who the two were.

"You want some help?" he asked with concern.
''We’re bloody hungry." was the weak reply
 With that exchange, the two sailors had completed what many thought to be
impossible. They had traversed the Atlantic on an open, 18-foot catamaran. But the
price they paid was great. Laurent and Pradel had often thought about crossing the
Atlantic on a Hobie Cat separately Then, one July night, Laurent told Pradel he had a
"crazy project" to talk about. Pradel replied that he, too, had been thinking of
something crazy After deciding who was to speak first, only two words were said:
"Atlantic Ocean." They decided on late autumn and chose the course from Senegal to
the French West Indies, a route that had the reputation of being "easy," a route
American slave ships travelled in the 17th and 18th centuries because fresh trade winds
and calm waters made the going fast and uneventful. "Once you have passed the Cape
Verde Islands, you'll see that the sea becomes peaceful and that it will rock you to your
destination," said their friends. By the time Pradel and Laurent were making final
preparations on their boat, which rested on the beach of N'Gor at Dakar, they were
dreaming of the sweet regularity of the trades, still mild at this time of year, that were
to push them all the way to Guadeloupe.

 On the beach at the Meridien Hotel of N'Gor, the Fujicolor as the boat had been
christened in honor of the trek's chief sponsor, had become a major attraction. The
crossbars had been set, the wings had been placed and the double-layer trampoline,
which would sandwich the bag of plastic-coated maps, was stretched between the
hulls. They raised the mast, fixed the shrouds and backstays and tied the ARGOS
beacon, an emergency locator, to the back of the trampoline. They fixed an inflatable
mattress across the boat along with a plastic sheet to be used for the protection of the
sailor at rest. As they readied themselves, tourists snapped photos and asked dozens of
questions. Most centred on the Seagold desalinator the pair had bought from Pierre
Fehlmann, the winner on uncorrected time, of the last Around the World race. They
explained that the machine could produce six liters of fresh water in only one hour by
pumping sea water through it.

 At 8:30 on the morning of November 12, Laurent and Pradel arrived at their boat and
were greeted by the staff and guests of the Meridien. They stuffed their water tight
bags with food and placed them in the hulls. The food included a high-energy mix of
cereals, dry fruit, cream and honey; bags of a protein drink; some cheese, a Morroccan
rice dish called couscous, a  little bread, butter and even some red wine. The sextant,
the two VHF radios in plastic cases, the cigarettes and lighters and other equipment
were placed in another bag and attached to the trampoline opposite the inflatable
mattress. Laurent and Pradel donned their equipment slowly and quietly to the sound
of the beating waves. Polar underwear, dry suits with neoprene necks, ankles and
wrists, were soon snug. Next, they slipped into their trapeze harnesses, life vests and
neoprene boots and their sunglasses and gloves. Pradel asked for someone to help
carry the boat to the water and 20 people volunteered, lifting the cat on their shoulders
and walking down the beach in a slow procession. Just when the hulls touched the
water, a fishing boat began to leave. It would show them the way through the reef. The
team waved a rapid au revoir and jumped aboard. Laurent took the tiller; Pradel
sheeted in. They were gone.

 "The third night passed the Cape Verde Islands," relates Laurent, "we realized that
our project was going to be much more difficult than we had thought. I began to
understand that it would be torture, but it was impossible to go back. The sea was
incredibly strong and there was no chance of returning. But then, we had never even
thought about abandoning. When we left the beach at N'Gor, the sea immediately
became very strong. We met strong winds, high, but negotiable waves and heavy
swells caused by the north wind. During the first night, the waves came from all
directions. Steering was difficult. The night was so black that we could not see the
bows three meters in front of us. A lot of concentration was required to feel from
where the next weird wave would arrive. We saw a cargo ship far away and I directed
the beam  of my flashlight onto the sail. This was the only boat we were to see during
the entire passage. Aside from that ship we saw an old drifting can; that's it.

 "We tried everything to sleep," says Laurent. "We changed the position of the
mattress so that we could put our heads under the shelter. Impossible. After three
nights we were so fatigued that we fell asleep in spite of everything but we were at the
extreme limit of exhaustion. Each time a wave came over, the one at rest was drowned
under a meter of water. This lasted several seconds. At the end of the first week, we
got upright without really waking up and held onto the shrouds, searching for air. Even
between the waves, we had the feeling of being in a drum with people beating on it.

The heavily loaded trampoline was so near to the water surface that the sea was
beating from above and below with incredible power. Meanwhile, followers in France
and in Guadeloupe followed the progress of the boat by tracking the ARGOS signal
sent out by the team's beacon. Supporters estimated their speed at seven knots, slow
for il the Hobiel8 and two seasoned sailors.  What they discovered was that a week of
heavy storm activity in the North Atlantic was driving large swells into the small
catamaran nearly 2,000 miles away. "in waves that never seemed to end, we passed a
sort of tropical tornado," says Laurent. "it was a black cloud like ink above a white
column that rose above the sea. When night came, I asked Daniel not to sleep. The
first wave ran toward us, and I've never seen a bigger one. It had to have been more
than ten meters. The wind  increased to 60 knots and we hauled down all the sails.
Despite that, the boat was surfing like crazy. I couldn't control it anymore. When we
saw this, we just said 'Looks like this will be the toughest night.' "During the storm a
wave struck and I got up but was still under water. In fact, the whole boat was under
two meters of water for about ten seconds. When I emerged, I  shouted at Daniel but
got nothing. I thought he was swept away! But the noise ,, was so intense that even
though he was I just a few feet away from me, he couldn't hear. Even he, on top of the
Magnum I wings, had a hard time keeping his head above water. After that, when it
would happen again, our only check was OK?' and when the other replied OK,' one
could go back to sleep. The next day, there was no wind at all, but the waves were still
there. In the morning I could not wake Daniel. He was dreaming of having break fast
on the terrace of a bistro at Toulon.

Two Hundred Pumps for One Glass of Water

We talked a lot about food," continues Laurent. "We were always hungry. Then we
discovered another problem: thirst. Pumping the desalinator took superhuman efforts.
On the beach at N'Gor, we described to our fans what the Seagold could do. While it
was true that the water was good, Daniel had to pump 200 times to squeeze the
equivalent of one glass of water out of it. Each time, we had to take the daggerboard
out of the windward hull, install the filter in the daggerboard case, put the outlet tube
into the mouth of the one to drink, then start pumping. We had two glasses of water
per day, one in the morning and one in the evening and that amounted to 800 pump
strokes. On top of that we had to use fresh water to dissolve the Substi 500, a highly
enriched protein powder. We had five bags a day of that. "Daniel pumped for the
whole passage. I tried it once but it was too tough for me and I told him I was going to
give up drinking. He waited several hours. I gritted my teeth and he finally went on
passing me the tube."

 But while Pradel was left to do most of the water pumping, Laurent tackled the tough
job of driving the boat. "We were always in danger of capsizing even when we reefed
the main and rolled the jib," says Pradel. "That would have been a catastrophe; our
boat was overloaded with 100 kilos of tools, equipment, food and instruments. Even
without the load we had some difficulties in our righting tests in the smooth waters of
the Bay of Hyeres in France. There were a couple of times in the 9 Atlantic when we
both thought "This is the end."

 Laurent agrees that the sea had become their enemy. "From the beginning, we
encountered only a stormy, disordered sea that pushed the boat in all directions. The
noise was very loud and the absence of any rhythm prevented us from getting
accustomed to it. The nights were the toughest moments. When I saw twilight arrive at
about six, it was like a nightmare repeating itself. I was not keen to go through what I
did the night before. Daniel, who needs 12 hours of sleep a day on land, whereas I
need very few, was better off during the nights. We learned a lot from each other.
Because of our spirit for survival, we never lost hope. When I saw Daniel looking wild
after he missed an object, could not co-ordinate his movements, did not understand
what I was telling him, or when he had problems moving on the trampoline, I reduced
the speed of the boat and waited for him to come back to reality. 'At the beginning we
were both sea sick. He was a little worse off than me; I had a fixed scopoderm behind
my ear-a gadget that proved pretty effective. Daniel let me steer and that reduced the
sickness since I had to concentrate on things other than the nausea. He stayed on the
trampoline operating the desalinator, preparing the meals, controlling the sails. He took
care of me. I tried to do the same for him, so I steered hours and hours as best I
could."
 
 Food also presented unexpected problems for the pair. According to Laurent,  both
men were reluctant to eat the food concentrates from the tubes and the slabs of high
energy cereal mix. Still, says Laurent, ‘After four days on the water, our revulsion
against the food out of the tubes was gone, but it was dangerous preparing it. We first
had to find the pliers in the bag attached to the trampoline. When we opened the bag,
the waves flooded it with water. When we closed it again, we had to open the hull
covers - between waves and had to find the food. Then we had to close the hulls, put
the pliers back and finally pump the water for the Substi 500. We had three flavors:
coffee, vegetable and vanilla. We never had enough water, so the drinks were always
too strong and made us nauseous, although the vanilla flavor wasn't too bad. If you
had the chance to grab one, the feast began. "Even dissolving the food was a problem.
We had shakers with us with screw-on covers and we had glued straps to them, but
they were torn off despite the reputation of the glue we had used. I lost one after the
other, washed away by the waves while we ate and when we lost the last one, it was a
catastrophe. Fortunately, Daniel had a stroke of genius. We took the case of a
flashlight (which was supposedly waterproof but failed anyway) and poured the
powder and water into that. We stirred with our fingers and ate. After a few minutes,
we could actually feel the energy circulating through our bodies." But this renewed
energy wasn't enough. In fact, the two were only taking in about 500 calories a day.
Malnutrition, exhaustion and constant submersion in salt water all worked against
them. Every time a small cut, scrape or abrasion scarred their skin, salt water was able
to enter. Soon it was infected. The constant exposure to salt water led to ulcers on
ankles, feet and hands that also became infected.  "Physically, our biggest problem was
the fact that we were just always soaked," says Laurent. "Everything except our
watches and the Maglite was inundated. After two days, we tried the VHF radios.
They were already rusty. One day after the start, Daniel tried to fetch a cigarette, but a
steep wave arrived at the same moment he opened the bag and flooded the lighters.
This wasn't a big tragedy since the next day, a wave washed all our cigarettes
overboard anyway. "When we each took our turn to sleep on the trampoline, we
would take off our KWay overalls from Helly-Hansen - which were quite practical
with their zippers everywhere, then our polar underwear, and we would wring out the
water. When we pulled them on again, we thought it was sheer luxury. We had
abandoned the dry suits long before because it was impossible to wear neoprene in
such conditions; our ankles and wrists would just balloon. Our boots were also thrown
over board because the volume of our feet had doubled and the neoprene prevented
our skin from breathing. Our feet became covered with ulcers which proved worse
than ankles, there was doubt that his feet could be saved. Five days later back in
France, a skin graft was successful and his feet began to heal.

 Laurent, although not as severely burned, was also racked with pain. His feeling had
come back as well. He did however, manage a breakfast consisting of a steak,
tomatoes, two bowls of cornflakes with lots of sugar, six yogurts, a complete
camembert cheese, four slices of bread and butter, croissants, other French breakfast I
cakes and a platter of fruit. Still, he could not move his limbs without extreme pain %I:
and as the blood continued to return, the pain increased. Unfortunately for Laurent, his
sailing idol, Mike Birch who had participated in the Route de Ruhm race and who had
helped plot their positions during the final days with his ARGOS beacon, refused to
come to the Meridien Hotel at Saint Francois, to salute them. "To shake hands with
him would help me more than all this medicine," said Laurent. Still, congratulatory
letters, telegrams and phone calls from Europe and North America poured in by the
dozens. Fujicolor waited calmly on the beach, almost mocking the sailors. It was
untouched by the ordeal. Nothing was broken and it exhibited very little wear despite
the bashing. Even the sails, prepared by Neil Pryde in the colors of the French and
Australian flags, were in excel- lent condition. Sailors even took the boat out to play in
the surf while Laurent and Pradel were attempting to recover.  The two drew several
lessons from their crossing The first, according to Laurent, is that "Nobody should
ever try a crazy thing like that; if we had known how tough it would be, we never
would have started." The second was the mutual respect needed for a crew, or anyone,
to survive a long ordeal. "When I think of Daniel clinging to the trampoline, his hands
and feet in the sea water. During the last few days, I couldn't prevent myself from
trembling and I hid myself when I had to vomit after seeing Daniel's feet. "Finally, on
the night of Saturday, December 6, we got the feeling that we were nearing land. We
could smell flowers and trees. We could see lights and cliffs. It was La Dominique, but
we did not know that yet. We just spent the night on the leeward side of the island
enjoying the stillness. We were very happy. It was the end and we knew that we had
succeeded although we didn't know exactly where we were because it was next to
impossible to tell our position with the sextant; we were too low on the water, and we
bounced around too much. Finally, on Sunday morning, we arrived in Guadeloupe.

When the two sailed into the marina, it turned out that they needed a lot more help
than food alone could provide. They had to be carried to a small restaurant, the Royal,
where a doctor was summoned to apply first aid to their wounds while they stuffed
themselves with their first full meal since the beginning of their journey. Pradel's feet,
which had seldom been atop  the wings and were always submerged in salt water, were
just tattered flesh. The skin was torn away over most of their surface. Laurent had
deep wounds and scars over his butt and thighs as well as craters on his feet a
millimetre deep. Both men's hands were covered with wounds that had crusted and
would not heal. Each cut, which never had a chance to dry and heal properly, was
infected. Their circulation suffered the effects of blockage due to sitting and crouching
in one position for hours on end and their hips and knees were paralyzed. Every
movement brought tears to their eyes, but the worst wasn't over. They were almost in
a state of shock. With their eyes glazed and the circulation problems preventing any
feeling in their lower extremities, the pain was not nearly a horrible state, I remember
that never as bad as it would become. Later in the evening of their first day on land,
Pradel was wheeled to a restaurant to have dinner with friends while Laurent slept in
his hotel room. Pradel's meal consisted of two large steaks, a plate of vegetables,
noodles and six large pieces of cake. Then he too retired for the evening.

 The next day, both men could barely move. Pradel, despite being given tranquilizers,
was tortured by the dressings on his feet, which began to come back to life during the
night. Tears welled in his eyes for three hours. Groggy, he kept asking for someone to
help him. Finally, when he managed to fall asleep, he felt himself aboard the boat,
unable to stop the rolling movement or the hammering of the waves in his ears. In his
dream he stretched his hand for a tool and some food only to have the waves wash
them away. With infected third degree burns over his feet and during the whole trip did
he once complain."

 Pradel also appreciated Laurent. "Tony is a much better driver than I am. I don't know
anybody else who's able to steer 18 hours a day in such high, vicious waves." Finally,
the two learned that even if the boat, rigging and the sails were able to stand up to the
punishment, the critical points such as clothing and survival equipment need a lot more
preparation and careful thought. Improvements need to be made.

 Naturally, the first few days after landing, both said they would never try such a feat
again. But Pradel, who is mounting a Tornado effort for the 1988 Olympics, began to
state that he wanted to sail in the 1987 single-hand Figaro race and Laurent began to
talk of racing Formula 40 catamarans in offshore grand prix events.
 
Despite their injuries, the sea had not lost it's allure.
 
 

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