Ripped sails and inoperable engine cause for rescue

A 67-year-old man was rescued from his disabled and adrift 38-foot sailing vessel Miss Lilly, located roughly 500 nautical miles south-southwest of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, by the US Coast Guard.

At approximately 9:00 am Thursday, Coast Guard District 17 command centre watch-standers received a distress alert from the sailing vessel Miss Lilly, in which the man aboard reported his vessel to be disabled and adrift.

The crew of President Eisenhower, a U.S.-flagged, 984-foot bulk carrier cargo ship, diverted 30 nautical miles to assist the man who wanted to abandon his vessel and come on board due to his vessel no longer being safe or seaworthy.

“This individual is very lucky the motor vessel President Eisenhower was relatively close and answered our urgent broadcast to assist – their efforts are commendable,” says Adam DeRocher, the District 17 Senior Search and Rescue Controller. “The sailing vessel Miss Lilly was so far away from our assets it would have taken much longer for us to arrive on scene to assist. For this case, the Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon and Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue components of the Global Maritime Distress Safety System quickly notified the Coast Guard and helped connect the motor vessel President Eisenhower to the sailing vessel Miss Lilly, ultimately saving this man’s life. All of the sailing vessel’s sails were ripped, the engine was inoperable, and the electronics all failed except for his EPIRB, which he activated in distress. It is so important to have multiple distress devices on board so you can let people know you need help and are in distress.”

The distress alert was communicated from the man’s 406Mhz Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) to a search and rescue satellite that relayed the message to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Due to the long distance to the position, command centre personnel requested assistance from nearby commercial vessels using the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue (AMVER) system. The Coast Guard issued an urgent marine information broadcast across a 100 nautical mile radius from the distress position to request local assistance for the stranded man using an Enhanced Group Call (EGC) over a satellite e-mail system known as Inmarsat C.

District 17 command centre personnel diverted the 378-foot Coast Guard Cutter Mellon and launched a Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak C-130J Hercules aircraft to assist with the search and provide a communications platform during the search.