British rowers rescued by Panamanian cargo ship after boat capsizes in Atlantic

  • Five British and one Irish rower found drifting on life raft of Sara G
  • Crew upturned 520 miles from Caribbean destination of Barbados
  • Group set off from Morocco 27 days ago

By
Neil Sears

Last updated at 7:03 PM on 31st January 2012

Six rowers feared for their lives when they were thrown from their 36ft boat into the middle of the turbulent Atlantic.

The crew of five Britons and an Irishman, who were trying to set a new speed record for crossing the ocean, were 520 miles from their destination on Barbados when disaster struck.

Two large waves hit the rowing boat, turning it sideways and filling it with water. With seconds, it had capsized – throwing five of the men into the sea, and leaving another trapped upside down with his feet in a harness.

Only when the entangled crewmember had been freed by his shipmates, and a roll call had been taken, did the rowers know they had survived the initial incident.

Upturned: The crew of the Sara G were taking part in the Atlantic Odyssey challenge to row from Morocco in north Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean

Upturned: The crew of the Sara G were taking part in the Atlantic Odyssey challenge to row from Morocco in north Africa to Barbados in the Caribbean

They were 27 days into their arduous
journey, which began at Tarfaya in Morocco – and had been hoping to set a
new record by crossing the Atlantic in 30 days, which they described as
‘the four minute mile of rowing’.

After setting of a rescue beacon to
summon help, they had a grim wait of 14 hours in a life raft before they
could be saved by a cargo ship.

And while the crew’s families were
waiting for them at their planned port of arrival in Port St Charles,
Barbados, the cargo ship was going the other way – so they are to end
their abortive voyage in Gibralatar on the same side of the Atlantic
they set off from, in ten days.

Tonight the captain of the doomed
rowing expedition, Matt Craughwell, 33, speaking from the cargo ship
which rescued his team, told how they had escaped a watery end.

He had been rowing with fellow Britons
Ian Rowe, a 45-year-old father of four, Simon Brown, 37, a father of
three from Wiltshire, father-of-two Yaacov Mutnikas and 29-year-old Mark
Beaumont, a documentary maker from Perthshire, Scotland, as well as
Aodhan Kelly, 26, from Dublin, Ireland.

Mr Craughwell, of Hertford in
Hertfordshire, said that after ten days of difficult weather, with
unpredictable swells coming from every direction at their boat, the Sara
G, the end finally came on Monday morning.

It happened as first one wave, then another, lashed their fragile craft.

Mr Craughwell said: ‘As the wave moved through it rotated the boat through 110 degrees.

Capsized: The five British and one Irish rower were 27 days into their journey when the 36ft vessel overturned at 11am yesterday, 520 miles from their destination

Capsized: The five British and one Irish rower were 27 days into their journey when the 36ft vessel overturned at 11am yesterday, 520 miles from their destination

‘She instantaneously started taking on water and the boat was capsized within about 10 seconds.

‘One of the rowers was in the upturned
boat for about 15 seconds because we couldn’t remove his feet from the
harnesses. It was quite a relief when she capsized and we called the
names – and everybody responded.’

He said it then took the crew 15
minutes of bobbing around in the water to inflate their life raft and
secure it to the capsized rowing boat. But the crew of experienced
adventurers responded expertly. Reacting in any other way could have
been fatal.

‘Frightened is a word I wouldn’t use, it was flight or fight from everybody,’ said Mr Craughwell. ‘It happened so quickly.’

The frantic pace soon slowed when the
crew spent up to four hours resting in their life raft as they got their
strength back from their near-death experience. Attempt to right their
boat then failed, so they set off a second rescue beacon, after one used
earlier failed to draw a response.

But they had a long nerve-wracking wait to be saved.

Route: The crew of the Sara G were just 520 miles from their destination when they capsized

Route: The crew of the Sara G were just 520 miles from their destination when they capsized

‘The time went incredibly slowly, it was a traumatic experience,’ said Mr Craughwell.

In total it was 14 hours, and in the
early hours of this morning, before they were picked up by a Panamanian
flagged merchant vessel, the Nord Taipei, which was en route from
Venezuela to Egypt.

The mother of rescued rower Simon
Brown, Janet Brown, said she had a sleepless night after hearing the
team’s organisers on dry land had lost contact following the capsize.

Mr Brown said: ‘At about 3am this morning I just heard that they had been picked up by a cargo ship – which was a great relief.

‘I hadn’t slept – I hadn’t slept since he left, actually.’

Mrs Brown went on: ‘I think they will
be totally gutted that it’s happened, that it’s ended like this, because
they were you know really on for the record.

‘They were really up for it, they were going well and I didn’t expect it to end like this but I’m glad that they’re safe.’

Coastguards in Falmouth, Cornwall, had
helped coordinate the international rescue of the rowers after the
emergency beacon was detected. They then managed to contact the rowers
by satellite phone, and traced the nearest cargo vessel.

It is not the first near-calamity to hit cross-Atlantic rowers.

Three years ago ill-fated skipper Mr
Craughwell had already been rescued on an earlier cross-Atlantic rowing
bid after his boat lost its rudder when it crashed into a whale.

And in December two transatlantic
rowers, Briton Tom Fancett and Tom Sauer, who is half Dutch half
Russian, had to be rescued from a life raft in the middle of the ocean
because their small boat sank in rough seas.

Here’s what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts,
or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

Hopefully they will have to reamin “home” and working to pay off the cost of the rescue. That should keep them out of such ridiculous ideas for several years.

So despite all this publicity, the bottom line is they failed, failed by a good few hundred miles!!!!

Seems odd that they had to do a roll call of names for six people.
– Tom, York, 01/2/2012 08:50
Idiot, roll call is just a term. If there are 6 people adrift in pounding seas, you can’t just presume your mates are all accounted for. You keep calling until you get a clear OK response from each and every member.

Seems odd that they had to do a roll call of names for six people.

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