Jakup Jacobsen and Edmund Berg have been rescued off the Cornish coast in the UK. A storm damaged their boat and they launched their emergency life raft and set off their EPIRB. The pair drifted in their life raft for five hours, and were rescued 1,480km from Lands End.
The route and rescue point. Photo: https://fl-fo.com/our-location/
The British coast guard received the EPIRB alert at 5:10 GMT on Thursday August 18. They contacted the closest merchant vessel, which changed its course toward the life raft.
An RAF Poseidon P8 flew out to help locate the life raft. It is the first time that this particular aircraft has served in search and rescue.
An RAF Poseidon P8. Photo: Royal Air Force/Twitter
The vessel Nordic Qinngua eventually rescued the pair, who had sheltered inside their cabin for two days because of bad weather.
On Thursday, this escalated. “A hard blow to the side of the boat from a huge wave did however cause damage, and we decided is was no longer safe to remain on board,” they reported on social media.
While various news articles have claimed that their boat sank, the pair say that there is no evidence of this. They still hope to be able to recover it.
They began their 7,500km journey on May 28, bound from Florida to Denmark’s Faroe Islands, north of the UK. They planned to complete the journey in 70 days but progress was slow due to constant headwinds. Also, they began their journey as a trio but the third crew member, Neil Blackeby, had to leave in June 4 because of a medical issue.
Their last update suggested that they were making good progress and had covered about 5,500km of their journey.
