They don't come any more hard core than this guy, sounds like he's VERY lucky to be alive, after what must have been an incredible rescue in extremely difficult conditions...

Following on from the loss of their monohull Cheminées Poujoulat off the tip of Cornwall during the night, Bernard Stamm and Damien Guillou were recovered early this morning by a cargo vessel heading for Rotterdam. The Swiss skipper contacted by his press service explained what happened.

Bernard, can you tell us about the accident? What exactly happened?

“Damien and I were sailing 200 miles off the tip of Cornwall around 180 miles from Brest. We were sailing downwind just ahead of the front. The wind was blowing at between 43 and 45 knots, but we were coping. We had prepared ourselves for this gale. We were already under storm sail with 4 reefs in the mainsail. In other words, we had the hand brake on, but crashing down on a wave the boat broke in two, just in front of the daggerboards. The mast didn’t come down immediately. We quickly closed all the watertight compartments and then the mast fell backwards. We quickly asked for help then organised our survival on board.”

http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/newswire/14170/bernard-stamm-s-first-reactions.html