This month’s CNN Mainsail programme features Oman Air Majan skipper Sidney Gavignet’s dramatic story in the Route du Rhum after his 100ft trimaran broke up mid Atlantic. The programme is aired this weekend or watch it online now.

Scene Setter
Over one million people come to see the skippers of the Route du Rhum race before they leave the French port of St Malo in France to race alone Trans Atlantic to Guadeloupe. As the sailors slip away from the dockside there is a gentle ripple of applause, the air is heavy with respect for those who are taking on a race that has a brutal reputation. History says that around thirty per cent will not make the finish.

To leave the St Malo all boats must ‘lock out’ – on board the one hundred and ten foot multihull OMAN AIR MAJAN is CNN Mainsail Presenter Shirley Robertson, Carolyn Gavignet and two children TaraJune and Chade as they prepare to say goodbye to skipper, husband and Dad, forty one year old Sidney Gavignet.

Robertson spent time with the family in the build up to the race, both at their home in Paris and training with Sidney from his base in Lorient. She has watched a proud and nervous family prepare to see Sidney, a vastly experienced ocean racer, take on the Atlantic alone is his huge mutihull.

On Wednesday November 3rd, three days into the race Sidney’s shore team receive a call that they hoped would never come…

Their skipper is in trouble, major damage on board, mast broken. There is only one option: for Sidney to leave his boat.

The way that the rescue is coordinated is a credit to the skipper’s shore team and to the race organizers, to the seamanship of Sidney Gavignet and to the Captain and the crew of the cargo ship Kavo Alexandros. But leaving a broken boat and getting aboard a ship is far from straightforward as the extraordinary footage filmed by Sidney and seen for the first time on CNN MAINSAIL reveals.

Saturday 20 November: 0730, 1600, 2330

Sunday 21 November: 0430, 0830, 1930 (all times GMT)