Search and Rescue and Continuing on to Panama
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 27 Jan 2008 18:53
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12:44.761N 73:00.206W
As mentioned yesterday, we diverted our course
slightly to the north to help with a search and rescue operation that was going
on. The story is that a St. Lucian fishing boat, named Vegas, had been
drifting for some time due to unspecified problems they were
having, and early yesterday morning (Saturday) at about 4:30 am, caught
fire and sank. There were four people on board, the captain was
rescued out of the water not long after the boat sank by Tillymint, an 82 foot
World ARC sailboat from the UK. Shortly thereafter two other World ARC
boats, Southern Princess (Australia) and Gray Lady (UK) arrived at the scene and
canvassed the area along with Tillymint, looking for the three other crew
members.
We arrived at the scene of the wreck at about
2:30pm yesterday afternoon along with World ARC boats Strega (Germany) and
Blueflyer (Ireland). At that time a coast guard boat from the island of
Curacao (not too far from Aruba) had arrived along with a search and rescue
aircraft. The aircraft circled the area while the six World ARC boats,
including Harmonie, traveled one mile apart from each other following a course
southwest of the wreck site (due to the current in this area, this was the
most likely direction the lost crew would have drifted). We continued
searching the area with the other World ARC boats until sunset.
Unfortunately, the other three crew members were not found. At sunset, the
coast guard released all of us from the search effort and we all continued on
our course to Panama. The coast guard planned to remain in the area with
the aircraft until 10pm last night. If no one was found, the search was
to be called off. We haven't heard if anyone was found last night,
but it is very unlikely that anyone was.
That's our search and rescue story. While we
were searching we knew it was very unlikely that we would find anyone, but it
would have been so incredibly cool if we or any of the other boats had.
The cause of the fire on Vega is unknown, although we may find out more details
when we get to Panama and have a chance to talk to Tillymint. Since they
rescued the captain, they may have more information as to what exactly
happened.
All of this is unfortunate, but it does reinforce
the importance of traveling in a group like we are. If something happens,
we know we'll have several boats come to our assistance within a short time
period. Aside from all the fun we have had and will continue to have with
the other boaters, knowing that they will there if we need them (and vice versa)
is what participation in the rally is all about.
After we resumed our course to Panama, we had the
best, most beautiful, fast (with a favorable current, we were going as fast
at 9-10 knots for a quite a while) downwind sail yet. We
passed the Venezuelan coast and are now fifty miles off the coast of
Colombia. Things are going very well and we still expect to arrive earlier
than planned in Panama.
Anne
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