The rescue (part two)

6 February 2016

Bit by bit it becomes clear what happened to the ‘Tarabaralla’. Salvatore, the Italian sailor who we rescued from the yacht, is exhausted and is still sleeping, but this is what we know so far: 
He had been fighting for three days with his yacht and the ocean. After his wind vane broke he jibed which caused tearing of his mainsail and breaking a few stays. And he (probably) got a line in his propeller so that wasn’t working anymore either. He tried to fix the problem but that was impossible due to very high waves. After the genoa exploded he tried to make an emergency rigging. But when this also failed, he was out of options.
When the ‘Oosterschelde’ arrived last night, half a mast was standing with rags of sail on it. The ship was floating and seemed to be high on the water, but it was drifting sideways on de waves and was moving uncontrollably. The ‘Oosterschelde’ made a bit leeway to be able to put the dinghy overboard. Not much later the dinghy returned with the only person who was on board, Salvatore. He was completely exhausted. For three days he had been fighting with everything he got but now it was over. Once on board the ‘Oosterschelde’ we had him take a shower and after that in bed. This morning he woke up, but after a piece of bread and cup of tea he went straight to bed again.