Word: boated
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Soldini's good fortune--and Autissier's--held. Two and a half hours later, Soldini peered through the predawn gloom and spied the white upturned hull of Autissier's boat, the PRB, being pounded by waves the size of a four-story building. Twice he steered as close as he dared, but, he says, "I couldn't see her anywhere." Calling out her name and getting no answer, he feared the worst. On his third pass, he hurled a hammer at the hull. It landed with a sharp crack. Moments later, an escape hatch in the stern opened...
...first woman ever to complete the Around Alone challenge. But even that huge triumph was not without trial. Rough seas and high winds claimed her mast as she neared Australia. With a makeshift rig, she was able to reach port and make repairs. She finished the race, but her boat came in seventh...
...that race. Not long after setting out from Cape Town, she lost a mast to heavy seas and limped to the remote Kerguelen Islands, where she had arranged for a new mast. But about 1,000 miles south of Australia, in the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean, her boat was overcome by a monumental wave and rolled a full 360[degrees]. Its rigging and even a chunk of its deck were stripped off. Had Autissier not been belowdecks, she would have been swept overboard. The Australian air force watched over her for four days until a navy frigate arrived...
...looked as if Autissier might fare better this year. Despite early damage to her keel, mast and rudder, she had claimed the lead as the remaining 11 boats set out for Cape Horn and Uruguay. Hoping to gain time, Autissier opted for a southern route through what navigators call the Screaming 50s because of the violence of the seas. But one day as she was studying weather maps below, the autopilot misread the wind. The boat veered sharply and rolled over so quickly that Autissier barely had time to seal the cabin. "Everything was a wreck," she later told TIME...
Realizing the boat was lost, she activated a radio beacon that relayed her position from a satellite to Charleston. That far from land or shipping lanes, her only hope was that one of her competitors might save her. Told he was in the best position to reach her, Soldini, who lost a close friend in a race just last year, changed course immediately...