January 19, 2020 – Croatian sailors rescued a French family, their beloved dog, and a Portuguese skipper from a sailboat stranded in the Atlantic during a storm.
Novi List writes that the MV Sunda ship, commanded by Rijeka captain Ivan Versic, rescued a family and skipper from a storm in the middle of the Atlantic last week. Specifically, Captain Versic, two other Croatian sailors, and a Filipino crew were involved in the rescue. The action concerning the first deck officer Ivan Moro from Sinj and the second deck officer Sasa Katavic from Kastela was carried out on January 10th. MV Sunda was informed that a sailboat with four crew members and a small dog was stranded due to an engine malfunction.
“We made contact through VHF radio and found out that everything was fine with the crew, only they were tired. We agreed to delay the rescue for the next morning due to inclement weather and nightfall. Shortly after that, we made the first visual contact with the boat, and we were nearby all night in case of an emergency,” explained Captain Versic.
The next morning, due to bad weather, the crew was forced to interrupt the rescue operation five times, but consistently looked for the most suitable course to get closer to the sailboat in the safest possible way. The waves were four meters high.
“We managed to stop close enough to the boat to give them a ‘Line Throwing App’ and slowly, around 15.05, they made it next to us. We managed to keep the boat there for ten minutes until the crew was moved to our ship,” said Captain Versic of the rescue mission.
“Our Good Captain Ivan Versic, with his officers and crew members of M/V Sunda, recovered from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a skipper along with a family of four members due to engine malfunction of their sailing boat. Congratulations to all our crew members for this successful, safe, and rescue operation!” said the Seastar team in a Facebook post.
The entire crew and a small French bulldog were rescued safely and without injury. Namely, three French nationals were rescued: a mother, father and 16-year-old child, and a Portuguese national, who was also the skipper of the boat. The boat was abandoned and the crew disembarked at the Brazilian port of Macapa on Thursday afternoon. The MV Sunda ship then continued its Amazon voyage upstream and is currently on the way to Santarem.
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