Anyone know any more about this?

[Fergus]

A lone Norwegian sailor was airlifted to safety from his liferaft yesterday after his yacht sank 48 miles North West of the Isles of Scilly.

Falmouth Coastguard requested a rescue helicopter from RNS Culdrose attend the yacht Sissa, a Scanmar 35 at around 9:30AM. Within 90 minutes the crew of the helicopter had located the liferaft and rescued the sailor.

The Norwegian man reported he was sailing alone from Baltimore in Ireland to Falmouth when he hit an object in the water. The vessel was holed and he was
forced to evacuate to the liferaft as the yacht sank.

The sailor was airlifted by a helicopter to Treliske Hospital, Truro

 

[pvb]

"Sissa" was a Scanmar 33 owned by Alf Johnsen, according to the Scanmar Owners website. Quick rescue, although I guess 90 minutes in a liferaft still feels like 90 minutes too long.

 

[nick1568]

The alert was raised by his 406mhz EPIRB, the better positional accuracy given by these, rather than a 121.5mhz EPIRB, was one of the factor's enabling such a swift rescue. That and R193 from culdrose being fitted with a homer allowing them to fly down the "line" of his radio beacon and straight onto his position.
The guy onboard managed to get his grab back and hand held VHF so was able to communicate with the helo when it arrived. There was no VHF distress call sent or received by any station as far as I'm aware. Obviously his position was quite a long way from any coast station aerial. Goes to show the value of the EPIRB I suppose.

 

[clyst]

better in a life raft than a life jacket I guess .