About halfway between Hooksiel and her home port of Horumersiel, a ten-meter-long sailing yacht capsized on the Outer Jade on Sunday afternoon. The German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS) brought three of the four crew members ashore alive. On the other hand, the sea rescuers could no longer help a 49-year-old woman. Immediate resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful.
At around 4.15 p.m., the accident report reached the Bremen emergency service. An observer on land had dialed the police emergency number. The 30er dinghy cruiser capsized relatively close to the coast, only three quarters of a nautical mile away.
The rescue cruiser "Bernhard Gruben" from Hooksiel launched its daughter boat "Johann Fidi" before it even cast off. Two rescue men took him on a course for the scene of the accident at about the northern end of the mussel field near the Wanger roadstead. About ten minutes after the alarm was raised, the helpers were already on site.
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 overturned boat. A woman was floating unconscious in the water."
The rescue men took the 49-year-old on board the "Johann Fidi" through the rescue gate and immediately began resuscitation. All efforts to save the woman were unsuccessful, however.
Initially, two of the three 55, 28 and 26 year old sailors had also climbed from the hull of the capsized yacht onto the daughter boat. "The skipper was in shock, we had to urge him several times to also climb over," says Schmitz.
In the port of Hooksiel, his crew handed the rescued persons over to fire fighters and the crew of the rescue helicopter "Christoph 26" from Sande, which landed directly at the berth of the "Bernhard Gruben". The hypothermic sailors came to the hospital for medical treatment.
Cause of the accident caused by sun shots?
Meanwhile, the rescue boat “Baltrum” from the volunteer station Horumersiel hooked the sailing yacht, which was floating upside down, dragged it to the edge of the tidal flats and anchored it there. The NDR documents the situation in a video sequence.
The rescue cruiser Bernhard Gruben with daughter boat Johann Fidi of the Hooksiel station
At the time of the accident, the Jade had a north wind of force 5 with a swell of one to one and a half meters with running water, i.e. a wind-against-current situation. No details are officially known about the course of the accident. According to YACHT information, the experienced crew was said to have been under spinnaker when a heavy gust hit. Apparently it came to a sun shot. The water police in Wilhelmshaven has started the investigation.
(With material from the DGzRS)
