"Troll"
On the night of last Saturday, 61-year-old Bernd Johannsen died in front of Sylt. While trying to save a fellow sailor drifting in the tidal current, he himself became a victim of the treacherous North Sea currents.
Together with two men, a woman and a dog, Bernd Johannsen sets out on a leisurely cruise from Munkmarscher Hafen on Sylt at 1.30am on board his motor sailer "Troll", an 8.30 meter long Centaur from the British shipyard Westerly. After about half an hour under the engine, the crew drops anchor in Pandertief, a large tidal current in the mud flats between the North Sea island and the mainland.
"On the warm summer night, those involved then drank some Wiskey-Colund wine," says Peter Iden, chief of the criminal police on Sylt. However, according to his research, the sailors were "at best drunk, not at all drunk".
At around 3 a.m., Bernd Johannsen's two male guests go to sleep. A little later, the 47-year-old Portuguese decides to take a bath in the warm waters and goes down the bathing ladder of the "Troll". When she lets go of the ladder, however, she is immediately driven off.
"Then the skipper must have thrown some life-saving equipment at her," says Peter Iden, describing what happened, as the questionnaires presumably showed. Then Johannsen jumped into the water himself. "When the water runs out, there is a current of five knots in the Pandertief", explains Jürgen Stöver, co-owner of the "Troll" in an interview with the YACHT. He cannot explain why his friend started this hopeless rescue attempt. In his opinion, Johannsen must have swallowed water immediately. Because Johannsen knew the area like the back of his hand. And "if he had been in full possession of his powers, he would have simply drifted with the flow with all the necessary calmness."
But it turns out differently. Bernd Johannsen drifts only a few meters past the Portuguese, now calls for help himself, before his voice dies after a few moments. The woman fights for her life for three hours - by a very big coincidence she is supposed to keep it.
A Westerland sailing couple, 70 and 61 years old, anchors on the way from Sylt to Föhr because the navigation instruments have failed. When the 61-year-old woman looks for seals with her binoculars during the emergency break, she discovers the woman looking for help. "At 6.20 am MariB. Was rescued from the water by the crew of the sailing yacht - completely exhausted and a good two nautical miles away from the" Troll ".
At about 6.45 am the rescue helicopter "Minden" rises to look for Bernd Johannsen. The Sylter can only be rescued dead at 10:20 a.m. The crew of the "Troll", the two sleeping men, have meanwhile noticed nothing of the drama.