An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth on a 5,000-mile carbon emission-free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker.
Raoul Surcouf, Richard Spink and skipper Ben Stoddart sent a mayday because they feared for their safety amid winds of 68mph (109km/h).
All three are reportedly exhausted but safe on board the Overseas Yellowstone.
Mr Surcouf, 40, from Jersey, Mr Spink, 31, and Mr Stoddart, 43, from Bristol, are due to arrive in the USA on 8 May.
‘Heartfelt thanks’
The team, which left Mount Batten Marina in Plymouth on 19 April in a boat named the Fleur, aimed to rely on sail, solar and man power on a 580-mile (933km/h) journey to and from the highest point of the Greenland ice cap.
…
But atrocious weather dogged their journey after 27 April, culminating with the rescue on 1 May after the boat was temporarily capsized three times by the wind.
…
Water was also getting into the boat from waves breaking over it and the crew took refuge in the forward cabin.
The crew were 400 miles (644km) off the west coast of Ireland when they sent a mayday to Falmouth coastguards who co-ordinated the rescue with Irish coastguards.
The transfer from the Fleur to Overseas Yellowstone was achieved in 42mph (67km/h) winds.
see the complete story from BBC NEWS here
(h/t to Philip Bratby – I suppose the boat becomes eco-pollution on the high sea now – Anthony)
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One more thought. Once they arrive in Portsmouth, USA. How will the poor guys get back to the U.K.? Sail? I think they tried that. Fly? Another carbon guzzling ship? Someone should go down to the harbor and ask them.
A minor correction, it’s not the roaring fifties, but the roaring forties and the furious fifties.
I’m they thought that the boat they we’re suing would be fine for the expected balmy breezes and mirror pond surface of the rapidly warming North Atlantic…..
I wonder if they planned on planting coconuts on the shore when they got there…..
A minor correction, it’s not the roaring fifties, but the roaring forties and the furious fifties.
I’m sure that they thought that the boat they’re using would be fine for the expected balmy breezes and mirror pond surface of the rapidly warming North Atlantic.
I wonder if they planned on planting coconuts on the shore when they got there…..
jack mosevich (12:43:17) :
There is a legend of Saint Brendan who sailed from Ireland to Iceland and beyond in a currag made of ox-skin, in the early 500’s AD. Now there is an eco-friendly sailor!
From Wiki: In 1976, Irish explorer Tim Severin built an ox-leather curragh and over two summers sailed her from Ireland via the Hebrides, Faroe Islands and Iceland to Newfoundland
Then there is Pytheas the Greek, who in 280BC sailed with a tin trading ship to Britain, then hitched rides to the Orkney’s, Shetlands, Iceland, and a place he called ‘Ultima Thule’ conjectured to be Greenland. In an early piece of climatic observation, he described the place he reached where the sun never set, and the environment was like ‘the inside of a lung’, where ice, water and atmosphere coalesced into a continuum of freezing fog.
Early transatlantic explorers in skin covered boats hauled them out onto the ice to escape storms and to hunt seal. These self reliant skills have been all but lost.
On the BBC film I could see the engine was running to sail away in the harbour. Was means their principle carbon-emission free in this case?
That solar panel is the most ludicrous thing I have ever seen on a boat.
You couldn’t leave a harbour and expect to come back with it.
The Polynesians could have taught that lot heaps, both about ocean sailing, self-reliance and conservation. Say, about a thousand years ago and without electricity or metal.
THEY COULD HAVE AT LEAST LET THEM SWIM ALONG SIDE FOR A FEW DAYS”AND THESE IDIOTS WANT US TO FOLLOW THEM ,GIVE ME A BREAK ,YOU CAN HAVE THAT SH.T.GIVE ME THE CARBON LIFE THANKS.
What, they thought they could sail right onto the land, then up 7 or 8K feet to the “top of the ice cap?”
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