Strong wind up to storm force in North Spits­ber­gen

The­re have been strong winds up to storm force in nor­t­hern Spits­ber­gen yes­ter­day (Mon­day – 2017/09/18). Two smal­ler boats seem to have got­ten into poten­ti­al­ly serious dif­fi­cul­ties. Emer­gen­cy signals have been trig­ge­red and search and res­cue forces are in the area with heli­c­op­ters and coast guard ships.

SV Anti­gua (whe­re the pre­sent aut­hor is on board) is also in the area, but we did not have more pro­blems than some cases of sea­sick­ness during our sai­ling pas­sa­ge yes­ter­day. So SV Anti­gua is NOT affec­ted by any serious pro­blems.

Update: after seve­ral hours sear­ching in the nor­thwest of Spits­ber­gen, whe­re SV Anti­gua also assis­ted, the boat was found »in good con­di­ti­on«. The SAR mis­si­on was offi­ci­al­ly aban­do­ned by the coast guard. At the moment, no fur­ther details regar­ding the iden­ti­ty of the boat or other are available.

Update: Accor­ding to Sval­bard­pos­ten, it was a local sai­ling boat from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The emer­gen­cy bea­con was lost and auto­ma­ti­cal­ly acti­va­ted during hea­vy wea­ther. The crew was not awa­re of that.

Source: Rolf Stan­ge via OnS­at-Mail direct­ly from SV Anti­gua

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