Hope fades for missing sailors in the Antarctic
Fear are mounting for three people who were on a yacht missing in Antarctica.
Searchers have found the boat’s only life raft damaged and covered in ice, but unoccupied.
The boat’s captain Jarle Andøy, who is known from TV both in Norway and Russia after a reality series called “Sea Spray/One year of adventures in Norway”, was on his way to the South Pole by skies when the yacht went missing.
Tuesday this week the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) said it picked up a signal from a distress beacon on the Norwegian-registered yacht Berserk 33km north of Scott Base in the Antarctic.
Three crew members, two Norwegians and one South African, were left onboard while Andøy and one other crew member, 18 year old Samuel Massie had been dropped to the ice in an attempt to reach the South Pole.
Two days after the distress beacon was launched, Andøy and Massie called the Norwegian Rescue Coordination Center to say that they were alive and on their way to the Scott Base. They were not able to reach “Berserk” by means communication.
An empty and damaged life raft found in the Southern Ocean off Antarctica has been confirmed as belonging to the missing yacht, VG writes. The Sea Shepherd Conservation ship “Steve Irwin”, headed by famous anti-whaler Paul Watson, has been searching for the yacht for the last couple of days.
The water temperature in the area is -12°C meaning survival is only a few minutes.
In 2010 Jarle Andøy led an expedition to teach young people from Norway and Russia how to sail. The expedition was filmed by Norwegian and Russian TV crews and became popular series known as Sea Spray (Sjøsprøyt) in Norway and One year of adventures in Norway (Год приключений в Норвегии) in Russia.
“Berserk” is known from several other reality series on Norwegian television. In 2004 the sailing boat sailed via the Belomorkanal from Arkhangelsk to St. Petersburg.
