Four people in a sailing boat that was sunk by a whale in the Pacific Ocean have been rescued after using a parachute flare.
The sailors on the 44-foot Raindancer were 13 days into a three-week crossing from the Galápagos to French Polynesia when the collision happened and the boat filled with water and sank within 15 minutes.
The crew made a mayday call on the VHF radio and set off the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. This was picked up by officials in Peru, who alerted the U.S. Coast Guard District 11 in Alameda, California, which is in charge of United States vessels in the Pacific. They then gathered safety equipment and essentials.
The four crew members took to a lifeboat and a dinghy and spent 10 hours adrift before a civilian ship rescued them.
Urgent broadcast
Fortunately, the Raindancer was sailing the same route as about two dozen boats in the round-the-world yachting rally, World ARC. Boatwatch, a network of amateur radio operators that searches for people lost at sea, was also notified. The urgent broadcast issued by the Coast Guard was answered by a commercial ship, Dong-A Maia, 90 miles to the south of Raindancer, which changed course.
In fact, the closest boat was a 45-foot catamaran, The Rolling Stones, which was not in the rally and was about 35 miles away. The captain had the mayday relayed to him by a friend sailing about 500 miles away and he headed to the last known coordinates, which took nine hours.
The Rolling Stones’ lights were spotted five miles away and contact was made on the VHF radio. When The Rolling Stones got closer, a parachute flare was activated and the rescue took place.
Owner, Rick Rodriguez, says, “I feel very lucky, and grateful, that we were rescued so quickly. We were in the right place at the right time to go down,’ The Washington Post has reported.
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