One of Gazprom Marketing & Trading’s (GM&T) newest time-chartered LNG vessels, ‘Yenisei River’, rescued four sailors after their yacht began flooding off the French coast on 30 October.
The Dynagas-owned 155,000-cbm newbuild, which was delivered to GM&T in July, braved moderate to rough seas to go to the aid of the yacht ‘Caprea’, which was taking on water.
‘Yenisei River’ had just left the Fos Cavaou LNG terminal with a re-export cargo, received distress calls from both the ‘Caprea’ and the local coast guard at 1640 local time on Wednesday.
GM&T and Dynagas said that at 1645 the ‘Yenisei River’ altered course and proceeded at full speed towards the yacht. She reached ‘Caprea’ about two hours later.
“It was clear that the sailing yacht and her crew were in imminent danger,” the companies said.
Four persons, of German, Swiss and Italian nationality, were transferred to ‘Yenisei River’ and taken care of onboard by Captain Arvind Saran and his crew. They were airlifted off the vessel by helicopter shortly after, allowing the LNG carrier to resume its passage.
Mr. Nikolai Grigoriev, Managing Director, Shipping & Logisitcs , said, “ We commend the captain and the crew for responding so quickly to the distress class and performing so professionally in the rescue operation. We also thank Dynagas for ensuring that their mariners are fully trained to deal with emergency situations. We are also very proud that Gazprom and its fleet continue to contribute to maintaining saftey of operations at sea.”
[mappress] Source: GM&T, November 04, 2013