A brief cell phone message ("We see the lights of Martinique") cleared the uncertainty about the fate of a yacht this morning. There had been no contact with "Steffi Q", a participant in the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC), for 18 days.
The Sun Odyssey 45 started on November 21 with berth charterers from Las Palmas to cross the Atlantic. The ARC headquarters received the required daily position report for the last time eight days later: 21 ° 18 ’N, 28 ° 58’ W. After that, all attempts to establish contact failed. None of the crews who had arrived in St. Lucie could say anything about the whereabouts of the ship.
After yesterday even the 30-foot-long "Glad" from Norway had reached its destination despite the early broken tree and almost all participants of the rally had arrived in the Caribbean, a spokesman for the organizer World Cruising said when asked by the YACHT that they were "seriously concerned "and meanwhile expect the worst. In addition, it became known that an unusually large number of repairs had to be carried out on the relatively new ship in the days before departure. However, the organizers drew confidence from the fact that the Epirb had not triggered, so the yacht still had to float - provided the system worked.
It is currently unclear what problems there were on board. Presumably "Steffi Q" no longer steered the port of destination St. Lucian after the long voyage, but also went to Martinique because, according to the cruise plan, she should start the Caribbean charter season the day after tomorrow from there.
You can read a detailed background report on this year's ARC in YACHT 2/05. The magazine will be published on January 12th.