As Morski writes, Zadar captain Josko Skoblar, together with his crew, heroically participated in the sacred duty of all sailors. Namely, at the beginning of November this year, while sailing through the Gulf of Mexico, Captain Skoblar and his crew rescued two unfortunate Cuban nationals who had been floating helplessly in the sea for days, holding on only to plastic canisters and pieces of wood. It is a real miracle that they managed to survive.
Zadar captain Josko Skoblar told Pomorac.hr an incredible story about rescuing the unfortunate Cuban nationals:
”I’m currently sailing on the Dakota Strength, [249 metres long]. It is a crude oil tanker with a capacity of 115,000 MT, [which was built in 2007]. The ship was en route from Philadelphia to Mexico, where we loaded the current cargo.
On November the 1st, at a position of 100 Nm northeast of the Yucatan Peninsula, at 09:30 local time, some people were observed floating around in the sea. By the time they were spotted, they were only a few hundred yards to our side. Something like that floating around in the sea is extremely difficult to observe. These people had clung onto two plastic canisters and pieces of wood and nothing else, something like that can’t really be detected by radar but only visually. I can say that it’s just a coincidence that we noticed them.
The guard officer informed me and I immediately headed for the bridge of command myself, but at the moment of arrival the target fell out of sight. The crew was immediately alerted, the observation position was marked out on the electronic map and I initiated the rescue operation. I began to turn the ship around, a lifeboat was prepared, and an additional guard was set up on the bridge. The first aid team was placed on standby.
After some fifteen to twenty minutes, the target was finally spotted again and I headed towards the people. Although the team on the rescue boat was on standby, I finally managed to maneuver closer to the people who were just several dozen metres away. We tossed life rings to them and drew them to the ship’s ladder over which we loaded them onto the ship. From the moment they were spotted, they were on our ship in an hour.
Two Cuban nationals were injured and in a rather bad condition. We immediately transferred them to the ship’s hospital, gave them fluids, dry clothes and everything else to make them feel better. According to their statements, the injured Cuban nationals were leaving Cuba for Cancun in Mexico when their ship was sunk by a storm. We later learned that there were eight people on board at the time of the accident, but the other six sadly didn’t survive.
The two surviving Cubans spent as much as six days at sea, carried by the Gulf stream which is quite warm in that area. The sea was at a temperature of about 28 degrees and the injured Cubans had managed to survive. I later made contact with the MRCC Mexico (Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre) and arranged for the reception of casualties on the Mexican Coast Guard patrol boat Oceanica Vera Cruz. The injured people were then transferred to a patrol boat at 22:00 local time on the same day, after which we continued our journey to the port of embarkation.
At the moment when they disembarked from our ship, they had already recovered well and were able to walk on their own, the heroic Zadar captain Josko Skoblar stated.
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