Amer Sports One skipper Grant Dalton is recovering in hospital having been stretchered off his yacht in Sydney. He has suspected broken ribs and severe bruising.

Navigator Roger Nilson, putting on his doctor’s hat for the second time on the second leg of the Volvo Ocean race, confined Dalton to a bunk and administered pain killers. Nilson said, “Grant was in severe pain and has massive bruising. Grant could not move without severe distress.”

Dalton was thrown into the side of the yacht when it fell off a wave. He was in the galley area and remembers being suddenly launched into space, “I broke the stove and the fitting that held it to the bulkhead and slammed into the side of the boat.”

Earlier in the leg, crewman Keith Kilpatrick was taken seriously ill with a suspected intestinal blockage while the yacht was 1500 miles from Western Australia. Nilson set up an ‘intensive care’ ward on the yacht. An RAAF Orion air-dropped medical supplies to the yacht and Kilpatrick was taken off at Eclipse Island.