Good news, for a chan­ge! The litt­le motor sai­ling Kob­ben is back in Nor­way, the man on board is in good con­di­ti­on, con­side­ring all cir­cum­s­tances.

Kob­ben had left main­land Nor­way on 13 Sep­tem­ber with cour­se for Lon­gye­ar­by­en but never arri­ved. A major search and res­cue ope­ra­ti­on was star­ted with major resour­ces, inclu­ding seve­ral heli­c­op­ters, fixed-win­ged air­craft and ships, but the search did not yield any result. Due to a lack of any infor­ma­ti­on about the boats whe­re­a­bouts, the who­le sea area bet­ween north Nor­way and Spits­ber­gen had to be sear­ched. The ope­ra­ti­on was aban­do­ned after seve­ral days, and the worst was feared due to stor­my wea­ther in the rele­vant peri­od.

The yacht Kob­ben is back in Nor­way (pho­to: Nor­we­gi­an SAR aut­ho­ri­ty).

On Fri­day (27th Sep­tem­ber), Kob­ben was final­ly clo­se enough to land, the islands of Ves­terå­len in north Nor­way, for the man on board to cont­act his fami­ly by mobi­le pho­ne who could then inform the SAR aut­ho­ri­ty. The boat had engi­ne trou­bles and was towed into the port of Ande­nes, as NRK reports. One can only suspect that com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on equip­ment on board was insuf­fi­ci­ent or mal­func­tio­ning or both. But that’s details, ques­ti­ons others may ask when the time is up for it – most important­ly, the man is back home and well. He is said to have done the crossing bet­ween Nor­way and Spits­ber­gen more than 40 times.

The SAR (search and res­cue) ope­ra­ti­on for the motor sai­ling yacht Kob­ben is dis­con­tin­ued wit­hout result, and it appears more than likely that the boat met a tra­gic end at sea.

The miss­ing yacht Kob­ben in main­land Nor­way (pho­to­grapher unknown).

Kob­ben left north Nor­way on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 13, with cour­se for Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but the boat never arri­ved. After depar­tu­re, the­re was no fur­ther cont­act that could give an indi­ca­ti­on about the whe­re­a­bouts or fate of the boat. The crew was one man, a Nor­we­gi­an of +70 years who is said to have had con­sidera­ble regio­nal sai­ling expe­ri­ence.

Kob­ben did not have an AIS sys­tem that could have sent a posi­ti­on by radio signals. The lack of any infor­ma­ti­on made the who­le Barents Sea from main­land Nor­way to Lon­gye­ar­by­en inclu­ding south Spits­ber­gen an area that SAR forces had to work their way through, which was done with heli­c­op­ters, fixed-wing air­craft and ships. But now the search is dis­con­tin­ued, Kob­ben is still miss­ing and the­re is litt­le hope for her bra­ve sin­gle-han­ded sail­or.

The wea­ther has been quite stor­my in the rele­vant area and peri­od of time.

The best poli­ti­cal ide­as come from Rus­sia the­se days (and just in case someone does not under­stand the sar­casm here: the com­ple­te oppo­si­te is obvious­ly the case). Mem­ber of par­lia­ment Ivan Suk­harev said accor­ding to Barents-Obser­ver that Rus­sia should build a pri­son for ter­ro­rists in Spits­ber­gen to iso­la­te them the­re. Alter­na­tively, he sug­gested Nova­ya Zem­lya, a Rus­si­an arc­tic island sou­the­ast of Sval­bard. It would be not­hing less than a revi­val of the ter­ri­ble Gulag sys­tem of Sov­jet times.

Nor­we­gi­an law ful­ly appli­es in the Rus­si­an sett­le­ment Barents­burg in Spits­ber­gen.
The Rus­si­ans can run a coal mine and tou­rism, but no pri­son.

The Nor­we­gi­an Sys­sel­mes­ter (high govern­ment repre­sen­ta­ti­ve) Lars Fau­se quick­ly made clear that the who­le ter­ri­to­ry of Sval­bard inclu­ding the Rus­si­an sett­le­ments are under Nor­we­gi­an law and sove­reig­n­ty. No sta­te or other enti­ty other than the Nor­we­gi­an sta­te is entit­led to car­ry out duties of sove­reig­ny such as cri­mi­nal pro­se­cu­ti­on, inclu­ding run­ning a pri­son. Rus­si­an does not have any sove­reign rights in Sval­bard. Accor­ding to the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty, a Rus­si­an com­pa­ny such as Trust Ark­ti­ku­gol may run a coal mine or tou­rism on their pro­per­ties in Barents­burg and Pyra­mi­den, but not­hing that invol­ves sove­reign rights.

Rain? We have had our share of rain in Spits­ber­gen this sum­mer, that’s for sure. And that is exact­ly the pro­blem with tho­se 25 mm of rain that the Nor­we­gi­an meteo­ro­lo­gi­cal ser­vice pre­dicts for Fri­day (06 Sep­tem­ber): the soil is alre­a­dy pret­ty much water satu­ra­ted and any addi­tio­nal rain will this run off quick­ly at the sur­face, which may lead to floo­ding and thus to dama­ge. Ear­lier this year the pede­stri­an bridge Per­le­por­ten was dama­ged by floo­ding in Lon­gye­ar­by­en.

Addi­tio­nal­ly, rain pene­t­ra­ting into the ground may cau­se soil lay­ers to thaw that have been fro­zen for hundreds or even thou­sands of years. This may affect slo­pe sta­bi­li­ty around Lon­gye­ar­by­en and other are­as.

Older lands­li­de in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, near the ceme­ta­ry (left side in the pic­tu­re): simi­lar events may hap­pen after the strong rain­fall expec­ted on Fri­day.