Incidents in the Atlantic.
Documented sailing emergencies in the Atlantic — 3 records, each with sources, lessons, and links to the SeaWise procedures involved. Search by the water you're about to sail.
← Search & filter the full LogbookIn thick fog on 21 October 2018 the ro-ro ferry Red Falcon lost orientation in Cowes Harbour, left the channel and spun through 220°. Disorientated, her master drove the ferry the wrong way and collided with the moored yacht Greylag, sinking it on its mooring. The MAIB found the master became fixated on his electronic chart and cognitively overloaded, and that the risk to people sleeping aboard moored yachts had not been adequately managed.
On 21 June 2006, during a sailing-club race off Holyhead, the skipper of the 8-metre yacht Huw Jars fell overboard. He was not wearing a lifejacket. The crew recovered him within about ten minutes, but he had drowned. The MAIB urged the club to require lifejackets, ensure a competent backup crew member can take over if the skipper goes over or is incapacitated, and establish man-overboard procedures and equipment.
On 2 July 2005 the small sailing dinghy Mollyanna capsized off Puffin Island, North Wales, in force 5–6 winds and 1.5-metre seas. It inverted and could not be held upright. The owner died within about ten minutes; his son and two grandsons clung to the hull for over an hour until a charter fishing boat found them. The youngest child also died. The dinghy failed the buoyancy and stability standard for its design category.