FOUR rowers who were airlifted to safety after their boat began sinking during a race across the Pacific have spoken about their rescue.
Fraser Hart, 34, from Tunbridge Wells, Sam Collins, 25, from Cornwall, James White, 36, from London, and Colin Parker, 36, from Auckland, New Zealand, were taking part in the Great Pacific Race.
The crew set off to row the 2,400 nautical miles from Monterey, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, on Wednesday.
But within a day their boat began taking on water, which seeped through its watermaker hatch into the main cabin.
The crew used an electric bilge pump to keep the problem at bay but the boat began to gain weight and water came in faster than they could bail it out.
On Friday the boat's electrics failed, leading to a Mayday call and the US Coast Guard attending.
A rescue helicopter was dispatched from San Francisco to evacuate the crew, who had reached 77 nautical miles due west of Morro Bay.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article