Posted on 09/06/2023 9:17:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
The sailors, from Russia and France, were rescued from the sinking catamaran early Wednesday.
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Three sailors were rescued from a sinking inflatable catamaran on Wednesday after it came under repeated attack by sharks that left them stranded more than 500 miles off the Australian coast.
The men, two Russians and one Frenchman, were picked up by rescuers after their emergency beacon sent out a distress call at 1.30 a.m. eastern Australian time (11 a.m. Tuesday ET), the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said in a statement.
The crew had embarked from the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu on Aug. 28 and were headed to the Australian city of Cairns, on the latest stage of an around-the-world trip.
But several shark attacks left both hulls of their 30-foot boat damaged.
The catamaran had “large sections of its hull missing,” Joe Zeller, a senior manager at AMSA, said in a video statement.
"An emergency beacon absolutely saved their lives," said Zeller, who was on call when the distress signal was received.
A huge Panama-registered vehicle carrier, the 650-foot Dugong Ace, carried out the rescue in the Coral Sea. The unharmed sailors, aged between 28 and 64, are expected to arrive in Brisbane on Thursday.
AMSA did not named the rescued men but the expedition is led by Evgeny Kovalevsky, alongside crew member Stanislav Berezkin, both from Siberia.
The project's website lists Vincent Thomas Etienne as an extra crew member participating in the Tahiti— Australia stage. The boat is a Russian-registered catamaran named “Russian Ocean Way — Tion.”
A spokesperson for the expedition told NBC News via text message that Yulia Kalyuzhnaya, head of the operation, will fly to Australia to meet the sailors and discuss the future of the voyage.
“Now [the] travelers are safe, this is the most important thing. Unfortunately, the catamaran could not be saved. The fate of the expedition will be clear next week,” the spokesperson said.
The trip from Vanuatu to the trio's intended destination of Cairns, Australia, is more than 1,200 miles and AMSA said it would normally take two to three weeks depending on weather conditions.
An Instagram account for the voyage said that the boat was first attacked on Monday by cookie cutter sharks, a small species that grows to around 16 inches and is linked to only a handful of attacks on humans. This caused the boat to partially submerge but it limped on for 100 more miles.
It was attacked again on Tuesday, when sharks pierced the catamaran's right-side hull, causing the boat to start sinking.
Satellite photos and a video on the AMSA website showed the extent of the damage, with the boat clearly listing and losing buoyancy.
The crew and their belongings were saved but the catamaran was lost.
“There are many reasons vessels are attacked by sharks but the motivations of these sharks is unclear,” Zeller said in a video statement released by AMSA. The trio was “very happy” to be rescued, he said.
The boat first set off from St. Petersburg in July 2021, led by Kovalevsky and Berezkin.
The pair said they were emulating pioneering Russian explorers of the 19th century. The voyage was planned to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Adam Johann von Krusenstern, who led the first Russian round-the-world voyage.
The plan was to visit 40 countries and return to St. Petersburg in July 2024, but the future of the project is now in doubt. The Russian Ministry of Science and Ministry of Education, as well as the state broadcasting company, are listed as "information partners" on the project's website.
AMSA has used the incident to remind sailors to always carry the appropriate safety equipment. "This is a timely reminder to always carry a distress beacon while on the water. GPS-equipped EPIRBs and personal locater beacons (PLBs) can save your life in an emergency," it said in a statement.
Maybe they should have tried the Hamster wheel instead
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4180472/posts
Inflatable boat + Shark-infested waters = BAD IDEA
A magazine cartoon had a bunch of people huddled together on a small inflatable boat. One guy was angry and said “Did somebody here just say pssst?”
Anything inflated can become deflated....
Here is video of shark attacking a raft with 2 guys on it...
https://youtu.be/D5WIdTQDkxo?t=116
My guess is that you don’t work for the Australian dept. of Tourism...LOL!
....and it did...................
Well maybe for those who like challenges. The Australian dept. of badass Tourism. You know Crocodile Dundee wannabes
Fiberglass boats are the way to go. We had wooden, glass and inflatable boats in Nam. I’ll take glass any day. As a bonus sharks can’t chew holes in them.
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