– French owner rescued by cargo ship
The vessel which was discovered off the coast off Berbice on Sunday is believed to be one that was abandoned after it capsized during a race from Senegal to French Guiana last month.
The Areva owned by Frenchman Remy Alnet capsized 400 miles off the coast of French Guiana last month, according to an article on YachtPals.com. This newspaper compared photos of the green and yellow boat from the website and it has identical markings with the one found including the name Areva and Remy Alnet written on the vessel, which is currently at the Leonora Police Station.
Local police officials when contacted yesterday said they would contact Interpol. According to YachtPals, Alnet’s boat capsized on April 17. Alnet, a competitor in the second edition of the Bouvet Rames Guyane ocean rowing race between Senegal and French Guiana was just over 400 miles off the coast of French Guiana at the time. The article said that thanks to his two emergency beacons, four cargo ships changed course immediately to aid the distressed rower and 29 hours after the capsizing, the supertanker Astra Chloé arrived on the scene, rescuing Alnet from his damaged row boat.
“I was inside the cockpit and wanted to play the music louder. I was opening the hatch of my cabin when a wave larger than the others totally flooded the inside,” the article quoted Alnet as saying. “The boat lost its balance and capsized quickly. I wanted to activate the pumping
system, but it didn’t work. I dove over ten times, unsuccessfully unfortunately. Then I climbed on the hull of my boat, but I started getting cold and losing strength… I knew that I had to put together a shelter, because the arches that are meant for that were broken at the start, so I had the idea of using the oars on both sides of the boat fixing them with ropes, I built myself something like a ring.
“Then I had to dive again in order to get my survival suit and some food, because I knew that the waiting could last a while. I imagined that they were looking for me and was keeping hope, but it was really hard because the waves were destabilizing me, and I kept losing my balance and fell in the water many times. I can tell you that I swallowed a lot of seawater during the night. But I was holding on to the oars, not letting go. In the end I attached myself to the oars. Furthermore, the boat kept sinking; it was only 50 cm above sea level.
“That night was interminable. When at day-rise I saw the cargo ship that was only 300 metres away, I dove again to get my flares. I waited until the very last minute to get them because I knew that I had to flood the caisson and that the boat would sink a little bit more. When I found them I got back on the boat. I had three of them, the first one didn’t work, the second one neither, only the 3rd one worked. The crew of the Astro Chloé saw me and got me onboard with a basket. They tried to save my boat, but that didn’t work,“ he told YachtPals.
The article went on to state that the “ocean row boat” Areva could not be saved and Alnet didn’t even have time to retrieve his papers before abandoning his vessel. Following his rescue, the Astro Chloé transferred Alnet to a Brazilian patrol boat, which took him to Belem, Brazil, “where the 50-year-old rower is no doubt now explaining to authorities why he has no travel documents. As an experienced rower with over 16,000 miles under his belt in 22 years, he should have no trouble talking himself out of that situation,” the article stated.
On Sunday, the Areva was discovered drifting in the Atlantic Ocean by a group of local fishermen off the coast of Berbice. The vessel has the markings “Marfret Compagnie Maritime” as well as “Guyane” in addition to several other logos on it. The boat also contains two solar panels which are imbedded on the top.
A crew member had told this newspaper that when the vessel was discovered it had been ransacked but another source said that at the time of the discovery, the vessel contained several bottles of water and a gas stove among other commodities.
Documentation allegedly pertaining to the boat was also found this newspaper was told but yesterday police said that they had not found any documents. This newspaper had been told that the captain of the boat had retrieved the documents.
The fishermen towed the vessel alongside the trawler to Vreed-en-Hoop and arrived on Tuesday morning and then another vessel towed it to the Zeelugt foreshore, where it was left unattended. Reports are that while the fishermen went to make a report at the Leonora Police station, the vessel was ransacked.