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Thursday, 18 May 2006 |
Volvo Ocean Race competitor Hans Horrevoets dies
One of the competitors in the Volvo Ocean Race has died after he was swept overboard.
Hans Horrevoets, 32, from the Netherlands, fell from ABN Amro Two on Thursday morning and attempts to revive him after being lifted back on the boat failed. Members of the crew attempted to resuscitate Hans Horrevoets with advice from medical advisors from Derriford Hospital in Plymouth but he failed to regain consciousness.
ABN Amro Two had been sailing in five-metre seas and 30 knot winds about 1,300 miles from Land's End in Cornwall at the time.
According to Volvo Ocean Race chief executive Glenn Bourke, Hans Horrevoets spent 40 minutes in the water before he was pulled back on board the craft.
The Volvo Ocean Race website states that, Hans Horrevoets, who had been a professional sailor for more than a decade, was the oldest member of the ABN Amro Two crew and the only one who was married with a child, an infant daughter.
Hans Horrevoets was a trimmer and sail maker on the Brunel Sunergy in the 1997-98 Whitbread Around the World Race, as the Volvo Ocean Race was then called.
He came late to the sailing crew of ABN Amro Two but had earlier worked with the Dutch team to select promising young sailors.
ABN Amro Two, one of seven boats in the ocean race, started out with its rivals from New York on 11 May and is expected to arrive in Portsmouth in the next few days but is considering pulling out of the seventh leg due to the tragic death of Hans Horrevoets.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 20 May 2006 )
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