Crew rescued from Arctic
All of the crewmembers were taken onboard a Danish ship, the FV Pamiut, the first vessel able to reach them. The fishing vessel, the Atlantic Charger, laden with turbot, was stricken in the waters of Frobisher Bay near Resolution Island and Iqaluit in Nunavut.
The weather in the area was stormy with winds to 70 knots and there were huge swells reported, along with icy and cold conditions. The decision was made to abandon ship with some of the crew in pyjamas at the time.
The Atlantic Charger is a $2.5 million, 21-metre state-of-the-art boat. She began taking on water Monday and her owner, Bradley Watkins, who was not on board, reported getting a call at 1:30 p.m.
All of the crew safely got into the life-raft and each were able to don survival gear. They signalled their predicament and the Canadian Military’s Joint Task Force Atlantic coordinated the rescue from Halifax.
A Canadian Forces Hercules was able to drop supplies down to the crew in the life-raft as they awaited rescue, including a radio to enable them to communicate. A number of ships headed in their direction and the rescue is being described as a joint effort.
The ship was launched to considerable fanfare in July of 2013 and it is a mystery as to what caused it to take on so much water.
Atlantic Charger: sinking
During the ordeal, the Joint Task Force reported the crew to be “cold and wet” but said they were emergency prepared and “in good health.” They were brought to shore early Tuesday.
The owner of the company that designed and built the Atlantic Charger, Val Cull of Northern Boat Repair in Port Saunders, could not yet say what happened and is surprised the ship, equipped with the latest electronic and other innovations, ran into such trouble.
He told the St. John’s Morning Show that it may have been a problem with the “valves and intakes” in the high-tech seafood chilling system. Cull and owner Watkins each have said that the important thing right now is that the crew is safe and will be returning to their families in Newfoundland.
Some media reported that the Atlantic Charger had sunk but Watkins said that at last report the boat was only partially submerged. Cull said that the ship was designed with water-tight bulkheads that should keep it on the sea’s surface.
However, there are reports that the ship has gone down.
