Abhilash Tomy was hurt when his vessel was damaged 2,200 miles from land

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An Indian sailor who suffered a severe back injury during a solo race around the world has been rescued by a French ship far off the west coast of Australia.

After being injured during a storm, Abhilash Tomy drifted in his mastless yacht about 1,900 miles (3,000km) from Perth for four days while maritime authorities raced to reach him, fearful that any moment a strong wave could sink or capsize his vessel.

Tomy was helpless, telling race organisers by satellite phone on Saturday he had lost the use of his legs and was confined to his bunk and unable to reach for food or water.

Ships scrambled to reach the sailor, who was stranded equidistant from Madagascar, Perth and Antartica and, said organisers, “as far from help as you can possibly be”.

On Monday evening a French fisheries vessel was the first to succeed in reaching Tomy, while Australian and Indian long-range P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft circled overhead. “Tomy rescued safely,” the Indian navy posted on Twitter.

The Indian defence minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said Tomy was “conscious and doing OK”. Race organisers had been keeping him informed on the progress of the rescue. They said Tomy had stopped replying on Monday morning, suggesting he was “now too weak to transmit”.

The decorated Indian navy commander was participating in the race to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Golden Globe yacht race, in which Robin Knox-Johnston became the first man to sail nonstop around the world.

Seventeen vessels had commenced the 2018 Golden Globe race from Les Sables-d’Olonne in France on 1 July. They were expected to be at sea for at least 200 days, but nearly half had dropped out by 11 September.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A photo supplied by Australian maritime authorities of Tomy’s yacht, Thuriya, adrift in the ocean. Photograph: AP

The anniversary race is an invitation-only competition that tries to recreate the conditions of the original. The elite participants must circumnavigate the world without GPS, relying on sextants, paper maps and the stars.

Tomy was sailing a modern replica of Suhaili, the vessel Knox-Johnston piloted in 1968. He and the other sailors were permitted a satellite phone to send two short text messages each day and make one call to race organisers a week. They also have a GPS tracker and spare satellite phone inside a sealed box, but breaching it means disqualification from the race.

Tomy, 39, first flagged he was in danger on Friday, sending a message to race organisers that read: “ROLLED. DISMASTED. SEVERE BACK INJURY. CANNOT GET UP.”

“He encountered terrible weather, where a wave the height of 14 metres [46ft] and winds to the speed of 100 knots plus hit him, and his boat did a 360-degree turn,” said DK Sharma, an Indian navy spokesperson.

The brief capsizing snapped the yacht’s mast and left Tomy “immobile and incapacitated”, Sharma said. Tomy went silent for 15 hours after sending the first distress message but surfaced again on Saturday, telling organisers he had managed to activate his emergency beacon.

“CANT WALK. MIGHT NEED STRETCHER,” he wrote in messages that day. “CAN MOVE TOES. FEEL NUMB. CAN’T EAT OR DRINK. TOUGH 2 REACH GRAB BAG.”

Indian navy vessels were diverted from exercises in South Africa while the Royal Australian Navy dispatched its 118-metre frigate HMAS Ballarat but both were thought to be at least four days’ journey from Tomy.

In the meantime the sailor said he had managed to grasp cans of ice tea. “HAVING THAT. VOMITING CONTINUINGLY. CHEST BURNING,” he wrote.

Footage of his boat, Thuriya, posted to Golden Globe’s Facebook page on Sunday, showed the yacht bobbing in a heavy swell with its sails draped over the deck.

At about 5.30am GMT on Monday, the French fisheries vessel Osiris braved eight-metre waves and heavy winds to reach Thuriya using two small motorised rubber dinghies. They administered first aid, provided water and retrieved Tomy.

“Tomy is conscious, talking and onboard the Osiris,” rescue coordinators in the Australian capital, Canberra, reported.

He and another sailor, Irishman Gregor McGuckin, whose yacht was dismasted in the same storm, have both been evacuated to Amsterdam Island, a French overseas territory, for medical examination. McGuckin was uninjured.

The Indian president, Ram Nath Kovind, thanked the Australian and French sailors for their assistance in rescuing Tomy.

“Appreciate our French and Australian friends for being part of the maritime effort to reach and assist this brave voyager,” Kovind wrote on Twitter. “I wish him a speedy recovery.”

Eight competitors remain in the Golden Globe. French sailor Jean-Luc van den Heede, 73, is currently leading, and forecast to reach the finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne on 17 January.