A 62-year-old Frenchman survived for 16 hours in an air bubble inside his overturned sailboat in the Atlantic Ocean before being rescued by Spanish coast guard divers in what they described as an operation “in point of the impossible”.
The 12-meter (40-foot) sailor Jeanne Solo sent a distress signal at 8:23 p.m. Monday 14 miles off the Sisargas Islands off the northwestern region of Galicia, the coast guard said. Tracking data shows he had left the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, on Sunday morning.
As a rescue boat carrying five divers set sail, one of three helicopters sent to help the search tracked the boat up as the sun set. A diver was attached to the boat’s hull to look for signs of life, and the man inside, who has not been named, responded to his blow to the hull by hitting from inside.
With the sea too rough to attempt a rescue, coastguards attached buoyancy balloons to the ship’s hull to prevent it from sinking further and waited until morning.
The coast guard crew made contact with the man by hitting the hull. Photograph: Reuters
Two divers swam under the ship to help free the sailor, who they found wearing a wetsuit and knee-deep in water.
Vicente Cobelo, a member of the coast guard’s special operations team, told a local station that the man then jumped into the icy water and swam under the boat to reach the surface of the sea.
“On his own initiative he got into the water and came out freediving, helped by the divers who had to pull him because he had difficulty getting out with his suit on,” Cobelo said.
The man was taken to a safe location and taken to the hospital for checks, and was released a short time later without any problems.