Titanic to the Rescue

by Benjamin Strong/Sail-World Cruising on 11 May 2008 Next time when sailing at sea you see a large ship and they are difficult to avoid and more difficult to contact, and you are about to curse all the large ships in the world, spare a thought for the Titanic.

A voluntary organisation of world wide ships which had its genesis with the sinking of the Titanic was last month responsible for yet another rescue of sailors in distress. The organisation – AMVER - rescued of the crew of a drifting trimaran 80 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, as the photo to the left dramatically shows. The 'Amver participating' container ship Milan Express rescued the two sailors after the wife of one of the crew contacted the US Coast Guard.

She said the crew emailed her reporting their trimaran, the Siesta Key, was adrift and had lost its sails. Rescue coordinators immediately notified Costa Rican coast guard officials and queried the Amver system to locate a merchant vessel near the disabled boat.

While Costa Rican coast guard personnel coordinated their response assets, the Amver participating container ship Milan Express, owned by Hapag-Lloyd of Hamburg, Germany, was diverted by United States Coast Guard. The Bermuda flagged container ship, under the command of Captain Adil Ghadiali, steamed almost 10 hours to the distress location and commenced rescue operations.
After less than an hour on scene the Milan Express had both survivors safely onboard.

But how is this organisation related to the Titanic? After the disaster of the RMS Titanic sinking in 1912, the world was horrified to learn that ships passing within sight of the ill-fated passenger liner were unaware that it had hit an iceberg and was sinking. Upon investigation, those who had seen the distress flares from the stricken ship admitted they thought they were merely part of the maiden voyage celebrations!

However, while the idea was born here, it was only with the advent of technology that the US Coast Guard were able to turn the idea of harnessing the spread and power of the ships of the world to come to the aid of distressed mariners. From a small beginning in 1958, this Coast Guard ancillary organisation has grown to be a world-wide service, and has many rescues of the crews of sailing boats to its credit

Early rescues received world wide attention. In 1992, an Amver-participating ship recovered famed French yachtswoman Florence Arthaud after her trimaran capsized during a solo race, and her later interviews were telecast worldwide. Then the Amver rescue of explorer Tim Severin from the 60-foot bamboo sailing junk HSU FU, while reenacting the voyage of its Chinese namesake in the year 218 BC, received mention in the pages of National Geographic magazine. In 1994 six Amver-participating ships converged on the burning Italian cruise ship ACHILLE LAURO to recover 504 of the 976 survivors. And, in the largest single Amver operation in its history, a flotilla of 41 ships from 18 nations searched over a six-day period to recover the only two survivors of the 31 crewmembers from the sunken bulk carrier SALVADOR ALLENDE.

Today, some 12,000 ships from over 140 nations participate in Amver. An average of over 2,800 ships are on the Amver plot each day. The Amver Center computer now tracks over 100,000 voyages annually. Over 2,000 lives have been saved by Amver-participating ships just since 1990. The success of Amver is directly related to the extraordinary cooperation of ships, companies, SAR authorities, communication service providers and governments in supporting this international humanitarian program to protect life and property at sea.

With Amver, rescue coordinators can identify participating ships in the area of distress and divert the best-suited ship or ships to respond. Prior to sailing, participating ships send a sail plan to the Amver computer center. Vessels then report every 48 hours until arriving at their port of call. This data is able to project the position of each ship at any point during its voyage. In an emergency, any rescue coordination center can request this data to determine the relative position of Amver ships near the distress location. On any given day there are over 3,200 ships available to carry out search and rescue services.

Visit their website to learn more about this unique worldwide search and rescue system.