Disaster in the North Sea: sea rescuers save sailors

Icon: enlarge

Sea rescue cruiser "Anneliese Kramer" of the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People, which was involved in the operation off Cuxhaven

Seven sailors were rescued after the accident on their ship off Cuxhaven. The yacht had allegedly collided with a fairway buoy, as the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS) announced on Wednesday.

One of the sailors alerted the sea rescuers around 11 p.m. - by then the ship called "Sharki" was already sinking. The position it communicated was several nautical miles from Cuxhaven. The sea rescuers informed surrounding ships and received feedback from a Belgian freighter with visual contact to the 15-meter-long sailing yacht.

While the four men and three women stayed on a life raft, the freighter stayed nearby. The "Sharki" capsized and sank. The sea rescuers came to the rescue with two lifeboats. A patrol boat of the Hamburg water police was also at the scene of the accident. All sailors could be brought to safety unharmed. You were originally on the way from the Kiel Canal to Helgoland.

Icon: enlarge

The former ocean-going yacht "Rubin", which has now sunk off Cuxhaven under the name "Sharki"

According to information provided by the DGzRS, the yacht was the former "Rubin" of Hans Otto Schürmann, who died in 2014 and was president of the German Sailing Association for many years. With the ship, which has now sunk, he won the legendary Admiral's Cup in 1973.

ala / dpa