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.

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