Wednesday 22nd November
Northern Light II
Michael & Sarah Loftus
Wed 22 Nov 2023 16:05
12 35.975n 35 07.578w
Following last night’s blog I can now give you more information of what happened yesterday .
The following was emailed to all boats this morning :-
Dear ARC+ Fleet,
At 1445 UTC today, the crew of ARC+ yacht Hilma reported to Rally Control that they had been dismasted in position 14 08.00N 33 15.68 W. Thankfully no injuries were sustained, and the broken rig did not damage the hull. The incident was also reported on the Instant Message Net at Sea.
Aequitas, Aratui & Northern Light II headed for Hilma's position and have donated fuel. At 1840, Henrik, Lotta & their crew reported that they were turning around to head back to Mindelo. They have enough diesel to get there. Rally Control will continue to monitor their position and maintain communications.
Thank you to all those boats who responded, both with the donation of fuel and offers of further support. An awful event to happen but made less so with the care of the fleet. Thank you!
We were about 10 miles South when we heard the call . Dropped our Parasailor and headed back as quickly as we could . Tom had marked the last position on the chart plotter . It was such a relief to see the crew of Hilma unharmed . We were carrying 140 litres in spare diesel in cans as back up for the crossing if we had to motor for a day or two but decided to give Hilma 40 litres, as did the other 2 boats attending . Tom rigged up a long line to throw to Helma and as we ran closely parallel to them he threw the line. It was then used to shuttle 2 Jerry cans from one boat to the other. It worked a treat! We wished the crew of Hilma well and turned back South again, happy we could help out in a small way .
We are now running about 40 miles behind the group we were near so it will take us a couple of days to catch up . Still heading South to pick up stronger winds .
All is well on board . We thought we caught a fish but it turned out to be floating weed!
Until tomorrow
Michael