Nautical To The Rescue

[SellaVee]

Just as the late show in Horizons was starting at 10.30 last night the captain announced that he'd had a call from Riga to say that there was a ship sinking about 5 miles from where we were on our route from Riga to Tallin. As we drew near he brought Nautica to a halt and sent out a rescue boat.

 

From the running track on deck 10 we were able to watch as a crew of 4 from Nautica managed to transfer the 3 crew from the stricken vessel and bring them to the tender dock on the starboard side. The sea was very choppy and it took several attempts to land the yacht's crew, then our rescue boat with the Nautica crew still on board was raised on davits to bring them back on board whereupon a great cheer went up from the passengers and crew who were watching.

 

The stricken yacht didn't look to me as if it was sinking but it was bobbing about like a cork on the water. It seemed to me that it had lost steering. The mainsail was stowed and they only had a little bit of the front sail (Genoa) out. The vessel was suitably lit. Once the crew were on board the yacht was left adrift.

 

Captain Maksym announced that the yacht's crew were distressed but seemed otherwise well and were in Nautica's medical facility waiting for a rescue boat from Riga to come and take them ashore.

 

Well done Nautica crew!

[LHT28]

good news for the sailors hope they are all OK

 

possibly the boat was taking on water that you could not see

leaving the jib up would help stabilize the boat in the wind/seas

 

Our friend had a leak in the area of the rudder shaft did not notice until his wife spotted the floor mat floating in the cabin

the boat sunk in the Hudson river & they were recused by the Coast Guard

[Paulchili]

Interesting "adventure". All's well that ends well and it sounds like everyone was OK.

You never know what unusual things you may witness while at sea.

Some years ago while we were on the one of Princess' R ships (now Sirena) we were witness to a very unfortunate incident. Our ship sunk the tug boat of the coast of northern Norway. The crew of the tug boat was fine and swam safely ashore in the icy waters. Needless to say that the ship was detained while the local authorities investigated the accident but we were eventually released (with our captain still onboard :D)