These three videos below were broadcast as headline events by BBC TV as the Alex/Mike story unfolded in November and December. I'm hesitant to reveal these to you, my friends, since parallels might be drawn to my own upcoming race in September. It might imply an equivalent risk for me.There is no parallel. If you wanted an analogy, the Velux 5 Oceans race is the Baja 1000 ("the toughest road race on the planet") and my own Clipper Ventures race is a VW bus full of hippies touring Southern California wine country.
That said, if you've got a good broadband connection, the following three videos give you some great footage of the event described in detail here, recorded mostly by Alex and Mike's onboard cameras but edited and produced by APP Broadcast, the same guys I so resented when they were sticking their cameras in our dispirited faces 24 hours before the Fremantle race restart.
Having interacted with the personalities involved (Alex more than Mike), it's all rather gripping footage to my mind...but then there's so much more to the story that just can't be recorded. As hinted at in the videos, Mike wasn't even speaking to Alex before the race start for reasons too long to explain but Mike readily rose to the demands of the rescue when called upon. Now, to see them here in these videos and to have seen them wide-eyed, subdued, and locked at the hip in Fremantle at Robin's arrival, as I did, you'd think they were life long best friends.
Funny how issues of life, death, and a 1000 miles of icy water between you and the nearest land just puts all the pettiness we're inclined to cling to into such stark perspective.
Watch the videos in the order presented below.
23/11/2006: Keel failure! (4:20)
28/11/2006: A dramatic week in review (3:27)
02/12/2006: Land ahoy!(10:33)
