Early this morning the Icelandic Coast Guard received a distress call from an American yacht located in the North Atlantic, deep south west of Iceland. The distress call came from an emergency transmitter onboard the yacht. The transmitter was turned on manually, rather than automatically, which leads the Coast Guard to assume the crew is in immediate distress. The identity of the yacht has not been released.
Two vessels, two airplanes dispatched to site
According to a statement from the Coast Guard the yacht is located outside Icelandic territorial waters, with few vessels located nearby. The closest ship is the marine research vessel Árni Friðriksson, which was ordered to sail to the location where the distress signal was sent from. The vessel should be at the scene shortly. The coast guard vessel Þór, which was on patrol south of Iceland was also dispatched to the site.
A plane from the Icelandic airport management authority, which is equipped with state of the art positioning systems, as well as a plane from the Royal Danish Airforce positioned in Kangerlussuaq in Greenland have also been dispatched to the area where the distress signal was sent from.
Heavy waves, high visibility
The captain of the research vessel Árni Friðriksson told the local news site Vísir that weather conditions where the signal was sent from are relatively good, with high visibility but heavy waves. The vessel has picked up an object on radar, which is believed to be the American yacht.
Early this morning the Icelandic Coast Guard received a distress call from an American yacht located in the North Atlantic, deep south west of Iceland. The distress call came from an emergency transmitter onboard the yacht. The transmitter was turned on manually, rather than automatically, which leads the Coast Guard to assume the crew is in immediate distress. The identity of the yacht has not been released.
Two vessels, two airplanes dispatched to site
According to a statement from the Coast Guard the yacht is located outside Icelandic territorial waters, with few vessels located nearby. The closest ship is the marine research vessel Árni Friðriksson, which was ordered to sail to the location where the distress signal was sent from. The vessel should be at the scene shortly. The coast guard vessel Þór, which was on patrol south of Iceland was also dispatched to the site.
A plane from the Icelandic airport management authority, which is equipped with state of the art positioning systems, as well as a plane from the Royal Danish Airforce positioned in Kangerlussuaq in Greenland have also been dispatched to the area where the distress signal was sent from.
Heavy waves, high visibility
The captain of the research vessel Árni Friðriksson told the local news site Vísir that weather conditions where the signal was sent from are relatively good, with high visibility but heavy waves. The vessel has picked up an object on radar, which is believed to be the American yacht.
