A narrative that could be in a film, but with a good conclusion. The Directorate General of the Merchant Marine said that the sailboat Admirante was found after being missing at sea for twelve days, and the person on board is safe and sound. The Alicante Maritime Authority said on Tuesday, January 27th, that a Frontex plane found the person on the sailboat, which had gone missing on January 15th after leaving the port of Gandía and heading to Guardamar del Segura. The person was in good health. They said, “The sailboat and its occupant have been found in Algerian SAR waters.”
The 69-year-old man who didn’t know much about navigation, was able to call Emergency Services 112 for help shortly after he last talked to his wife on Thursday, the 15th. He said he was “somewhere near Benidorm.”
The wife went to the Guardia Civil station in Gandia on Friday, the 16th, at noon to report his disappearance because she hadn’t heard from him. At that point, the initial resources were put to use. But all the alarms went off that same Friday night at about 10:00 p.m., when the man who was missing was able to call the 112 Emergency Service for help.
In that last message, the man said he was lost and that his only way to get in touch with others was through his phone. His engine battery had failed, and he didn’t have a radio. He never said that the sailboat was taking on water, but he did say that he had lowered anchor to keep it from floating and that the boat had flares and a life jacket. But he couldn’t tell exactly where he was because the communication was cut off. He was entirely alone in the middle of the water because his phone battery had died.
Numerous news stories
Starting that Friday, January 16th, both Maritime Rescue and the Guardia Civil sent out many people and equipment to try to find the ship by sea and air. The researchers searched the entire Alicante coastline for several days without being able to find its exact location. As time went on, the operation, which started on the shore near Benidorm, spread north and south of the province, finally reaching the coast of the Region of Murcia.
Also, Maritime Rescue sent out notifications to all seafarers so that any ship may report what was going on. The operation reached a crucial point after seven days with no results. In fact, the Guardia Civil and the Red Cross have sent out resources, and the Maritime Rescue Sasemar 308 plane, which has a wider field of vision, has also been looking for fresh regions of water off Alicante in the past few days, covering all of Spain’s area of responsibility.
Finally, after twelve days of searching, a Frontex plane found the person aboard the sailboat in Algerian seas, safe and well. The merchant ship Thor Confidence then rescued the crew member. The Directorate General of the Merchant Marine says that the crew member will get off the ship in Algeciras on Thursday, the 29th. The Navy’s Maritime Action Operations and Surveillance Centre and the National Search and Rescue Coordination Centre worked together to plan the mission.
After days of tireless searching using Maritime Rescue resources in the Spanish SAR zone, the location was identified on January 24th, when the search was called off. Radio alerts and communications with the Algerian authorities were still operational.
Author: Derek Appleton
Other Articles
No Comment! Be the first one.