Salvage of the sunken ex-Admiral's Cup winning yacht "Rubin", which sank in the Outer Elbe off Cuxhaven on Tuesday
Photo:- / dpa
The former German Admiral's Cup winning yacht "Rubin", which sank in the North Sea in the Outer Elbe area, has been recovered. On Thursday evening she reached Cuxhaven, said the recovery company Otto Wulf. The ship was located at a depth of 18 meters with sonar and then lifted with a crane.
The 15-meter yacht, which is now called "Sharki", sank with seven Polish sailors on board late Tuesday evening. The water police now want to check whether the boat, as described by the skipper, collided with a fairway buoy and then sank. The explanation is not implausible: The current is strong in the Outer Elbe, and many Elbe sailors have rammed a ton on their way to the North Sea - but rarely with such serious consequences.
The sailors, four men and three women, were able to escape to a life raft in time. A sailor radioed Mayday and alerted the sea rescuers from the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People. The position of the yacht given by her was five nautical miles from Cuxhaven. Bremen Rescue, the operations center of the sea rescuers, informed surrounding ships and received feedback from a Belgian freighter with visual contact to the damaged yacht. The freighter stayed nearby until the rescuers arrived at around 11.30 p.m. All sailors were recovered unharmed from the rescue cruiser "Anneliese Kramer". The yacht was on its way from the Kiel Canal to Helgoland.
The sunken sailing yacht with its home port of Stettin (Poland) is the former "Rubin", the famous yacht of Hans-Otto Schümann, ocean sailor from Hamburg and longstanding president of the German Sailing Association. Schümann, who died in 2014, took part in the 1973 "Admiral's Cup" with the ship, which was long considered the unofficial world championship for sea sailing. The German team, which in addition to the "Rubin" also included the yachts "Saudade" and "Carina III", surprisingly took victory in the regatta series, which until then had only been won by the British and Americans.
Icon: The mirroroka / dpa