About halfway between Hooksiel and its home port of Horumersiel, a sailing yacht almost ten metres long capsized on the Outer Jade on Sunday afternoon. The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (DGzRS) brought three of the four crew members ashore alive. However, the sea rescuers were unable to help a 49-year-old woman. Immediate resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful.
At around 4.15 p.m., the accident report reached the Bremen Maritime Rescue Centre. An observer on land had dialled the police emergency number. The 30-metre dinghy cruiser had capsized relatively close to the coast, only about three quarters of a nautical mile away.
The rescue cruiser "Bernhard Gruben" from Hooksiel launched its daughter boat "Johann Fidi" before it had even cast off. Two rescuers set course for the scene of the accident at the northern end of the mussel field near the Wanger roadstead. The rescuers were already on site around ten minutes after the alarm was raised.
"Three men on the hull, one woman in the water"
Michael Schmitz, skipper of the daughter boat, describes the situation as follows: "Three men were sitting on the hull of the capsized boat. One woman was floating unconscious in the water."
The rescuers took the 49-year-old woman on board the "Johann Fidi" via the rescue gate and immediately began resuscitation. However, all efforts to save the woman were unsuccessful.
Initially, two of the three sailors, aged 55, 28 and 26, had also transferred from the hull of the capsized yacht to the daughter boat. "The skipper was in shock, we had to urge him several times to get over as well," says Schmitz.
In the harbour of Hooksiel, his crew handed over the rescued sailors to firefighters and the crew of the rescue helicopter "Christoph 26" from Sande, which had landed directly at the berth of the "Bernhard Gruben". The hypothermic sailors were taken to hospital for medical treatment.
Cause of the sunshot accident?
Meanwhile, the rescue boat "Baltrum" from the Horumersiel volunteer centre picked up the upside-down sailing yacht, towed it to the edge of the mudflats and anchored it there. The NDR documented the situation in a video sequence.
At the time of the accident, there was a force 5 northerly wind on the Jade with a swell of one to one and a half metres and outgoing water, i.e. a wind-against-current situation. No details of the course of the accident are officially known at present. According to YACHT information, the experienced crew was travelling under spinnaker when a heavy gust came in. It would appear that they were hit by the sun. The Wilhelmshaven water police have started an investigation.
(With material from the DGzRS)
