Last night, the French-flagged yacht "Anahita", an Ovni 345, sank north of the coast of Canada in the Northwest Passage. The accident occurred in Depot Bay, east of the Bellot Strait. According to initial information, the ship had previously been trapped by drift ice, from which the crew was unable to free itself.
Under the pressure of the ice, the "Anahita" then sprung a leak and sank. The crew, two Argentinians, had to flee onto the ice. However, they managed to make a distress call and activate the boat's epirb. This transmitted just long enough for the nearest SAR station to launch a rescue operation.
Both men have since been rescued by helicopter. Initially, other yachts in the vicinity that had responded to the "mayday" had tried in vain to reach the casualties. This was despite the fact that all the crews currently in the region with their yachts had a hard time getting themselves and their vessels to safety in the last few hours before drifting ice fields emerged.
A tugboat and an icebreaker were also ordered to the scene of the accident. However, the latter is likely to take hours to reach the scene of the accident.
Like around a dozen other yachts, the "Anahita" was on its way from east to west through the Northwest Passage. This summer, however, the ice in the Arctic is proving stubborn. Unlike in previous years, it has not yet cleared the way. So far, the crews have had no choice but to exercise patience. Or to turn back.
This is exactly what the Canadian authorities have been urging all crews to do in recent days. It was not foreseeable that the passage would open at all this year. On the contrary, the current ice conditions are dangerous for yachts. Crews should therefore either move their boats back south or look for a safe wintering harbour in Baffin Bay.
The skipper of the "Anahita", Pablo David Saad, had deliberately ignored the official warning and instead orientated himself on the skipper of another yacht, who had already sailed the passage several times and who had hoped that the ice would retreat in the last few days. Saad has been sailing for several years and with different crews. Both he and his current companion come from San Martín de los Andes, a town in south-west Argentina near the border with Chile.
