An 84-year-old Spanish yacht owner who was knocked into the storm-tossed Mediterranean Sea by a swinging boom and survived more than four hours in the water is still keen to compete in a race, event organizers said Sunday.
Jacinto Rodriguez, skipper of “Duende 52,” wasn’t wearing a life jacket when he went overboard in darkness at around 4.30 a.m., but his padded pants helped keep him afloat.
“The pants were bad for swimming, but they gave me buoyancy,” Rodriguez later told reporters.
He had been sailing to participate along with 136 other boats in Spain’s 34th Copa del Rey regatta off the resort island of Mallorca.
