A Norwegian coastguard vessel is preparing to rescue an 82-year-old yachtsman, whose boat suffered mechanical failure during rough weather in the North Sea.
The man raised the alarm on Tuesday evening, when the yacht’s steering failed in extreme weather conditions, with 7-metre (23ft) waves and gale-force winds. The yacht was about 95 nautical miles from Lerwick in Shetland and 86 nautical miles from Norway.
The 25ft Harrier of Down began drifting towards a gas platform, which had 162 people on board, although it did not collide with the platform. A standby vessel, Vos Prospector, from the Dunbar gas field, contacted Shetland coastguard after picking up the solo yachtsman’s distress call, and a rescue operation was launched.
Vos Prospector tried and failed to attach a tow line to the Harrier of Down because of severe conditions. Two helicopters were on standby in collaboration with the Norwegian coastguard, but the man, believed to be British, declined to be airlifted as he did not want to abandon his yacht.
A Norwegian coastguard vessel from Bergen is travelling to the scene and will tow the yacht back to the city. The man was thought to be travelling from Shetland to Bergen when he ran into into difficulty.
“A Norwegian coastguard vessel is standing by to tow the yacht to Norway once conditions calm down,” said a member of the Shetland coastguard.
Harrier of Down is thought to belong to Julian Mustoe, who wrote a book, Voyage of the Harrier, about his circumnavigation of the world between 2001 and 2012, retracing Charles Darwin’s journey in HMS Beagle.
Mustoe’s website says the first part of that voyage was made in the first Harrier and, after a shipwreck, the rest of his circumnavigation was made with the second version of Harrier of Down. He planned to set off for the Baltic Sea in the summer for another historically informed cruise, based on the territory and activities of the medieval Hanseatic League.
An experienced seaman, Mustoe sailed across the Atlantic in 1965 with his then wife and two children to the Caribbean, and on to New York. They lived there for two years before he sailed back to England singlehanded in 1968.
