Five people have been successfully evacuated from Noah, a yacht competing in the transatlantic Atlantic Rally for Cruisers.
Noah skipper Alex Grefrath told regatta organizers at noon that the vessel was rapidly gaining water. He also reported that he could not localize the leak. Two hours later, the yacht signaled Mayday: her electric pumps had failed and her manual pumps couldn't cope with the amount of water coming in.
Other rally participants - Ocean Dream, White Satin, Step by Step 2 - and the British research vessel James Cook responded to the signal. The Noah crew announced to all vessels their intention to accept assistance from the James Cook so that ARC competitors could continue the race.
At 16:45 the crew of Noah, consisting of skipper Alex Grefraz, his wife Alexandra, their two sons aged 10 and 12 and family friend Jörg Zeibig, were successfully evacuated from the sinking yacht.
Noah's location was tracked by the YellowBrick tracking system installed on board. At the time of writing, the yacht is fully submerged.
A similar incident occurred last year during an ARC rally with yacht Magritte, which suddenly started to rapidly accumulate water. The crew were unable to identify the source of the leak and still do not know exactly what happened.
The Atlantic Rally for Cruisers is an annual transatlantic regatta for cruisers. It is one of the largest sailing events with up to 225 boats competing. In 2016, there were 212 yachts from 31 countries at the start of the ARC. The famous racing maxi yacht Rambler 88 took part in the rally.
