Belgian Sailors Save Two from Raft in Black Sea
by BW Media on 30 Sep 2008
Tolstoy in its last moments SW
World news about sailing often involves stories about commercial ships coming to the aid of sailors in distress. The tables were turned on Sunday when a Belgian sailing vessel in the Black Sea was able to save the lives of two men on a life raft, survivors of North Korean-registered cargo ship, the Tolstoy, which sank in rough waters on Saturday.
Nikolay Apostolov, executive director of the Executive Maritime Administration Agency said that the yacht had apparently contacted Turkish authorities by telephone as they didn't have a radio on board.
The Belgian yacht, Mirage, which effected the rescue had departed from the town of Tsarevo on September 25, heading for Istanbul.
The two Ukrainian seamen, Andrey Krizhenovski and Denis Ahrameev, sent a text message from their life raft to a family member late on Saturday but Bulgarian rescuers failed to find them all day on Sunday, said Mr Apostolov. They survived after the Tolstoy split in two and sank rapidly near the Bulgarian coastline.
No word has been heard of any other surviving crew of the complement of nine, in spite of seven Bulgarian ships and a helicopter searching the area where the ship sank.
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