TUTICORIN: A well-coordinated mission resulted in the rescue of nine Indian crew members from a mechanised sailing vessel (MSV) that was sinking 170 nautical miles (315km) off the Tuticorin coast in the early hours of Wednesday. The crew members were rescued by a Cyprus-flagged vessel MV MCP Salzburg and taken to the Maldives, from where they will be repatriated to India.
MSV ‘Annai Vailankanne Arockia Vennila’ set off from Tuticorin to the Maldives with 287 tonnes of cargo such as cement and vegetables on Saturday. Arockiyasamy Edward, 49, of Tuticorin was the vessel master while Maria Antony Santhosh, 22, Seelan Williston, 25, Siran Arockiyasamy, 26, Milton Edward, 50, Vesenthi Esthove, 60, Narayanan Unni Christopher, 61, Adaikalam Loorthu Mariyan, 63, and Thomai Gnanam, 62 were the crew.
The vessel was hit by rough seas about 170 nautical miles off Tuticorin and 230 nautical miles (426km) to the Maldives. Realising the danger the men disembarked some load from the vessel, but in vain.
Unable to sail through the round winds and huge waves, they tried returning to Tuticorin on Tuesday when sea water entered the engine room and the vessel suffered a technical snag.
Unable to operate the vessel, the men in distress alerted the MSV owners association in Tuticorin and the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) maritime rescue coordination centre (MRCC) in Chennai.
According to the ICG, the crew gave a distress message through the distressed alert transmitter (DAT) that the vessel was flooding.
MRCC launched the national search and rescue services and activated an international safety net for coordinating search and rescue operation.
Two merchant vessels Norway-flagged MV ‘SKS Mosel’ and MV ‘MCP Salzburg’ were identified as the potential search and rescue units and diverted to the datum.
