The day of the incident began with a beautiful sailing experience.

I lifted the anker in the morning and was heading to the New Providence Island, Bahamas. The first few hours of sailing was quite windy due to a local thunderstorm, but the weather and wind became quite calm later on.

Slowly, I began to recognize that the sailing vessel was moving differently. She was behaving quite slow and sluggish in the waves. So I started searching throughout the boat to find the error.

That’s when I saw that the boat was already filling with water.

Seeing this, I tried saving both the boat and my own life. But after some time, I was not able to handle the situation on my own and could not find the source of the water that was quickly entering the vessel. So I changed plans and focused on saving my own life first while leaving the boat behind. 

I grabbed my Rapid Ditch Bag, the EPIRB, a VHF, and a lot of water while I headed to the life raft. As I entered the raft, the Sailing vessel sunk and the connecting wire between the life raft and the boat pulled me slightly under water. At this moment I was frightened to death. But luckily, the predetermined breaking point was triggered so the life raft rose to the surface as the boat sank.

That is when I activated my ACR V6 EPIRB

After activating the EPIRB I received hope. The coastguard was instantly informed that I was out there somewhere in the waters. They advised all ships on VHF to keep a sharp lookout throughout the area. After hearing this on the VHF, I felt confident I was going to survive this situation.