Sailor who narrowly avoided drowning after he was swept overboard in Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race during a wild night that claimed two lives breaks his silence on terrifying ordeal

A competitor who survived being thrown overboard during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race has recounted how he survived the harrowing experience. 

Luke Watkins, captain of the 15ft Porco Rosso, was blown overboard as the 2013 handicap winner, formerly known as Victoire, made her way past Green Cape on the NSW Coast in the strong winds around 3.15am on Friday.

Mr Watkins said he was taken off-guard when the boat went through a rough wave which completely washed the deck and momentarily capsized it into the ocean. 

While the boat was flipped onto its side and Mr Watkins was thrown into the water said he frantically tried to unclip himself from the vessel fearing he was ‘on his last breath’

After managing to unclip the harness and then orient himself underwater he returned to the surface to see his boat 200metres ahead of him and still sailing away.

Mr Watkins said his safety training helped him survive as he kicked into gear, checked his pockets for supplies and activated his personal locator beacons. 

He found a flashlight, some food and a couple of glow sticks in his pockets which he cracked to make himself more visible in the darkness which surrounded him.

On the same night in particularly rough seas for the notoriously tough race, a sailor aboard Flying Fish Arctos and one on Bowline also lost their lives after winds caused a boom and sail respectively to collide with them, throwing them across the deck. 

Mr Watkins made light of the life-threatening situation once on dry land but said he was acutely aware of how grave his situation was before he was rescued.

‘My first thought was ‘this isn’t fun’ and then basically I just tried to keep calm and work through my safety training really,’ he told the ABC.

‘I just tried to huddle and keep keep warm [but] after about 10 minutes I could feel myself starting to get a little cold and so I just went into a bit of a survival pose and kept my elbows in. 

‘It was pretty rough being thrown around by waves and it was pretty hard to keep my head above water most of the time, I swallowed a fair bit of salt water but I tried to keep my thoughts under control.’

Vice-commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, David Jacobs, said the experience is one of the most terrifying any sailor could imagine. 

‘That is one of the most terrifying experiences that you can have,’ Mr Jacobs said.

‘[And] it was at night, which makes it tenfold more scary.

‘Fortunately there are developed systems and procedures to cater for that situation to retrieve the person.’

The captain of the boat said his survival instincts saved him 

The incident triggered the crew member’s emergency position-indicating radio beacon, a safety device that must be worn by all sailors in the race.

As a result, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority was automatically notified of the incident and contacted the Sydney to Hobart’s race committee.

AMSA also deployed an emergency aircraft to begin searching for the crew member.

‘They had, we believed, been washed about 1.2km away from the boat,’ Jacobs said.

Four-time line honours champion Master Lock Comanche, which had retired earlier in the race, was diverted to assist Porco Rosso in the search-and-rescue efforts.

After about half an hour in the water Mr Watkins saw the a light piecing through the darkness around him and realised Porco Rosso was sailing back towards his position.

Mr Watkins was mostly unharmed, but Porco Rosso opted to retire at around 4.45am rather than continue into the Bass Strait, where strong to gale force winds were blowing. 

The deaths earlier in the evening were the first in the yacht race since the tragic 1998 Hobart, which claimed the lives of six in violent storms and triggered mass reforms to the race’s safety procedures.

‘The sailing community is a very close community. There’s about a thousand sailors on the water in this race, and to lose two in this fashion is just devastating,’ Jacobs said of the recent deaths.