Accident at sea: Spinnaker tears off a Swiss man's little finger on the high seas

The accident occurred south of the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, Ralph Bender reported to the Australian radio station ABC in a programme broadcast online on Saturday (local time). During a storm, his little finger got caught in one eye of the spinnaker. "I tried to save the spinnaker, but lost it and with it the tip of my little finger," said the Swiss.

Bender almost fainted. He had a local anaesthetic on board. He poured it on the wound and operated on himself. "I cut the rest off with scissors," he said. On land, he would have shouted for help, but if nobody could hear you, there was no point, he said. "I asked myself:

What am I doing here? I could be at home, sitting in front of the stove, with a cat on my lap and drinking a coffee"

He was initially unable to sail and drifted from South Africa towards Australia.

Bender reported that he had been very afraid of an infection. He put a small plastic bag over his finger and taped it together with his ring finger. After about four days, the bleeding stopped. As he couldn't use his hand, he couldn't set sail. But that was not all: the mast almost came down from above, the autopilot failed and the battery was flat. But Bender was able to prevent an infection in his hand. "After about two weeks, I climbed back up the mast," he said.

According to ABC, Bender reached Bunbury, around 200 kilometres south of Perth, on 24 January. The Swiss met a surgeon at the local sailing club. "He told me I'd done a good job," Bender told the radio station.

Originally, Bender had hoisted the sails near Barcelona in order to reach Easter Island in the Pacific. Now he is waiting in Bunbury until his sailing boat is repaired.

• The complete radio programme can be heard here ...

This might also interest you:

• Injuries on board - what to do in an emergency