spitzbergen-3
fb  Spitsbergen Panoramas - 360-degree panoramas  de  en  nb  Spitsbergen Shop  
pfeil THE Spitsbergen guidebook pfeil
Marker
Home

Daily Archives: 19. September 2017 − News & Stories


A mor­ning full of worries, an after­noon full of joy – 19th Sep­tem­ber 2017

The mor­ning star­ted with a mes­sa­ge that cau­sed gre­at con­cern. The Nor­we­gi­an search and res­cue ser­vice had recei­ved an emer­gen­cy signal from a sai­ling boat that had came into trou­ble yes­ter­day during the storm. Heli­c­op­ters had sear­ched the area alre­a­dy last night, a coast­guard ves­sel was approa­ching. Nobo­dy had heard any­thing from the sai­ling boat so far, so the worst had to be feared. All ves­sels in the area – not that it were that many – were asked to assist, and so we did wit­hout any hesi­ta­ti­on. The coast­guard asked us to search Fuglefjord and Hol­miabuk­ta, and so we did with fee­lings of fear.

Then came the infor­ma­ti­on from the coast­guard that the boat had been found »in good con­di­ti­on«, the SAR mis­si­on was over. No fur­ther infor­ma­ti­on. All souls well! Very plea­sed to hear that!

We turn around and head for Raud­fjord, whe­re we spend a love­ly hour in the late mor­ning in Hamil­ton­buk­ta. In the after­noon, Sep­tem­ber shows what it can do on a good day. Deep sun over rug­ged moun­ta­ins, warm light on red­dish-brown rocks. An ama­zing after­noon!

Gal­lery – Raud­fjord – 19th Sep­tem­ber 2017

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

Sai­ling boat lost and found

The­re have been strong winds up to storm force in nor­t­hern Spits­ber­gen yes­ter­day (Mon­day). 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 also seve­ral tou­rist ships inclu­ding SV Anti­gua assis­ted, the boat was on Tues­day found „in good con­di­ti­on“. The SAR mis­si­on was offi­ci­al­ly aban­do­ned by the coast guard. It was later sta­ted that it was a local boat from Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The emer­gen­cy signal posi­ti­on was from Mag­da­le­nefjord, while the boat was found in Wij­defjord, almost 100 km away as the ivo­ry gull flies. The emer­gen­cy signal had been trig­ger auto­ma­ti­cal­ly wit­hout the crew being awa­re of it; pro­ba­b­ly, the emer­gen­cy bea­con was lost in hea­vy seas and trig­ge­red its­elf.

Wind force 8 on Mon­day at the north coast of Spits­ber­gen. Pho­to © Alex­an­der Lembke.

Storm Spitsbergen

Back

News-Listing live generated at 2024/April/19 at 00:44:49 Uhr (GMT+1)
css.php