Sailing
boat
with
two
German
tourists
sinks
in
Salento,
wind
and
storm
surges
block
rescue
efforts:
husband
and
wife
rescued
by
helicopter
Problematic rescue, during the night, in San Foca in Salento. A sailboat with a couple of German tourists on board ran aground, tilting on its side, a short distance from the small port of the town that belongs to the territory of Melendugno, on the Adriatic coast of Lecce. The very rough sea conditions and the strong wind prevented for a long time the rescue operations from having the result of bringing to safety the two people on board, a sixty-year-old woman and her 70-year-old husband, who, in the meantime, had sent the distress signal. A dinghy first, and then a patrol boat that arrived from the Otranto maritime district office, were unable to reach the boat to load the husband and wife. For this reason, the intervention of the Sar (Search And Rescue) group of the Gioia del Colle Air Force was requested, which reached the coastal area where the “Io posso” beach is located, to the left of the port, to carry out the recovery of the occupants through the work of the winches: the helicopter positioned itself vertically and, exactly above the vessel, released cables and men to recover the shipwrecked people. The reason for the problem is yet to be ascertained, but the event occurred just a few metres from the cliff, so everything suggests a wrong manoeuvre or the force of the wind and currents that pushed the boat to a point where the emerging rocks hit the hull of the hull which then bent on its side. The couple were taken to Gioia del Colle. Two other boats with other Germans, who were in the group, managed to reach the mouth of the port but got stuck on a shoal about a hundred metres from the shore. The Coast Guard will soon recover the sail for subsequent recovery
video processing by Daniele Leuzzi
