Four crew members of the yacht Lady Thuraya, which was rescued after being adrift in the Arabian Sea for three days as it lost engine power last week, recalled the horror of their expedition, during a felicitation by the Indian Coast Guard on Wednesday.
The yacht, registered in the British Virgin Islands, is currently undergoing repairs at Indira Dock, while the crew, comprising South African nationals James De Weerd, Tarryn Mynhardt, and Dylan Swanpoel, and Philippines national Jaeyson Ordiz, are completing customs and immigration formalities. The crew were on a recreational expedition. They set sail from Male, Maldives, on May 23 for Salalah, Oman, and then to Greece.
Inspector General K.R. Nautiyal, Commander, Coast Guard Region (West) felicitated the crew members at the Coast Guard Headquarters in Worli on Wednesday.
Mr. De Weerd, master of Lady Thuraya , said, “We lost a small generator on May 28, before losing our large generator and engine on May 31, leaving us unable to charge batteries. The main engine overheated due to water intake, and we could not turn it on as the battery was low. We lost our radar and GPS, and on the last night, due to the squall and rainfall, the sails were also damaged.”
Lady Thuraya sailed in an old school manner for three days. The crew attached a 12-volt battery, usually used to connect to the small generators, to a backup radio and GPS. “We used the backup GPS once a day to chart our course, and then used a compass to sail towards Goa, since we did not want to sail against the wind,” Mr. De Weerd said.
The Indian Coast Guard Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) raised an International Safety Net on June 1. Merchant ship MV Seacor Diamond located the yacht 390 nautical miles off the coast of Mumbai on June 3, and towed it to the Mumbai harbour’s outer anchorage by June 7. Mr. Swanpoel said they all have sailing experience of about five years, and the yacht was stocked with ample food and water. “So we were pretty confident of making it to the shore in good condition,” he said.
IG Nautiyal told The Hindu that they had been monitoring the Lady Thuraya issue since June 2, when the boat was on the fringes of the Indian Maritime Search and Rescue Region (ISRR). ISRR is a big area, almost one-and-a-half times the landmass of the nation, and the ship at first was over 500 nautical miles off the Indian coast “We coordinated with the MRCCs of the U.K., Australia and Singapore, among others, but it was difficult to locate the boat due to its small size. In this kind of weather, the search and even towing was a herculean task,” he said.
