Two hundred and sixty-eight miles off the coast of Mauritius, the ocean is warm, tinted a blue that can make it difficult to distinguish sea from sky. Last November 29th, during the time of night when the horizon seems to distance in the dark, a sailboat was weaving a course through a maze of reefs called the St. Brandon atoll. As the stars emerged, there was a sudden crunch. Then a second later, a crash. The sixty-five foot boat shook. A crew member stumbled across the deck. "It's a rock!" he screamed. Then, "Oh, fuck! What is this?"

The nine members of Team Vestas were racing the six-million-dollar boat from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi in the Volvo Ocean Race, a round-the-world sailing competition that circumnavigates four oceans, six continents, and eleven countries. Vestas' skipper, Chris Nicholson, was an experienced sailor. He knew the race's dangers: Since it began in 1973, five athletes have died, and nineteen boats have been too damaged to finish.

Vestas had collided with a shallow reef covered by a few feet of water. It was a matter of seconds before the gravity of the damage was clear. The coral had torn a hole in the hull, and seawater poured through. The electrical system short-circuited, plunging the ship into darkness. "It took a massive, massive pounding," Nicholson said later to race control, according to transcripts provided by Volvo. "I was amazed what was getting thrown at it." The crew were uninjured, but they were in the middle of the Indian Ocean, on a boat filling with water, with no rescue in sight.