Distress at sea: Thunderstorms and foehn winds cause difficulties for Easter sailors

The sea rescuers had to rush to the aid of the four-man crew of a flat-bottomed ship on Maundy Thursday. It was in danger in the Wadden Sea between the East Frisian islands of Juist and Norderney.

On the way from a shipyard in Ditzum to the island of Spiekeroog, the 11.5 metre long ship, which was sailing under full sail, ran into a very sudden storm front. When trying to stop, the jib sheet got caught in the propeller, according to a report by the sea rescuers.

Ship threatened to become a plaything of the waves

With the water flowing at around four knots and the swell up to one metre high, the crew then alerted the sea rescue service via VHF channel 16.

"The crew of the flat-bottomed vessel demonstrated very good seamanship. When we arrived, she had dropped the anchor and managed to retrieve it after we had made a line connection and hooked the ship," reports foreman Gerd Schwips on the situation at the scene. The twelve-tonne, unmanoeuvrable shipwrecked vessel was towed safely to Norderney by the rescue cruiser "Eugen".

Battery smouldering fire on board a cruise ship

On the Baltic Sea coast, the fire brigade had to be called out to the Großenbrode marina on Easter Saturday evening. A battery on board a cruising yacht moored at the jetty had caught fire. The family crew noticed the danger when foul-smelling vapours suddenly spread through the cabin at around 9 pm. They left the ship immediately and alerted the fire brigade.

"We were only able to enter the sailing yacht wearing protective clothing and breathing apparatus to protect our emergency services from toxic vapours," said incident commander Florian-Michael Schubert from the Großenbrode fire brigade on kreiszeitung.de. It goes on to say: "The emergency services discovered that one of three batteries had become hot and was leaking vapours."

The firefighters managed to remove all the batteries and secure them on land. The defective battery then had to be disposed of by a specialised company.

Foehn storm over Lake Constance

A foehn storm caused problems for several water sports enthusiasts on Lake Constance over the Easter weekend. On Good Friday, the water rescue team had to be deployed to Fußach Bay. The crew of a sailing boat had made an emergency call at midday and reported technical problems.

However, it later turned out that the boat did not have a technical defect, as the "Kronenzeitung" newspaper writes. Rather, the boat's engine was simply too weak for the wind and wave conditions - the waves in the area were around 1.30 metres high - to be able to manoeuvre the boat in the Fußach fairway.

The case of a sailing yacht crew who made an emergency call on Good Friday on Lake Constance between Nonnenhorn and Lindau is similar. The ship's engine had failed and the crew was unable to set sail, the skipper said on his mobile phone.

However, when the water rescue team arrived at the ship, the sailors had managed to hoist a storm jib. The rescuers escorted the yacht to the nearest harbour.

Skipper shoots red after engine failure

On Easter Sunday, the crew of a sailing boat off the coast of Langenargen even turned red, triggering a major rescue operation. As reported by SWR, according to the police, the skipper wanted to enter the marina in Langenargen at around 3.40 pm when the engine failed to start. He therefore decided to turn back towards the centre of the lake under sail. There he set off a signal rocket and made an emergency call.

A large contingent of firefighters, DLRG and the German Red Cross were alerted because of the signal rocket. According to the police, around 75 people were deployed in total.

According to the SWR report, the sailing ship was eventually towed into the harbour by a DLRG boat; all four crew members were unharmed.