Hampshire sailors on the Volvo Ocean Race all escaped unhurt from a dramatic 12 hours on stage five of the round-the-world event in the notorious Southern Ocean.

Gosport’s Dee Caffari and Hamble’s Sam Davies, onboard the all-female Team SCA, toppled over along with Hamble’s Rob Greenhalgh on the Spanish-backed MAPFRE yacht and Dongfeng team.

The incidents happened on rough seas, with all of those boats doing Chinese gybes – an accidental gybe caused by either strong wind or big wave that is also known as a 'death roll'.

It forces the main sail to slam over, the boat to end up in the water, with the keel on the wrong side keeping it on its side.

The six-strong fleet are tussling with the dangerous Southern Ocean as they make their way from Auckland in New Zealand to Itajai in Brazil.

Daily Echo:

Three of the six boats toppled over and Warsash skipper Ian Walker, onboard the Abu Dhabi boat alongside Southampton navigator Simon Fisher, also had eventful night.

They reported a “night of two gybes, a wild one in pitch black with a massive wipe-out and then a ‘controlled’ one at 30 knots.”

Davies and Caffari were upended at around 5am this morning.

The team’s onboard reporter, Anna-Lena Elled, said: “We ended up on the side for maybe two to four minutes before slowly getting back in the right position.

Daily Echo:

Despite the damage, nobody was hurt.

Walker and his crew was able to recover from their hit and moved to within eight nautical miles of leaders Team Brunel.

MAPRE also recovered and are currently third, around 26 nautical miles adrift of the leaders.

SCA, however, slipped to almost 100 nautical miles behind top spot.

WATCH BELOW: Team Russia Chinese gybe during the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09