{"id":9417,"date":"2017-03-09T00:02:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T00:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/dramatic-yacht-rescue-off-australia\/"},"modified":"2017-03-09T00:02:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T00:02:58","slug":"dramatic-yacht-rescue-off-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/dramatic-yacht-rescue-off-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramatic yacht rescue off Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"TheImage copyright Australian Martime Safety Authority
Image caption The sailors say they owe their lives to rescuers <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A couple has told of facing "waves the size of buildings" when their yacht broke in remote seas off Australia.<\/p>\n

Irishman Nick Dwyer, 55, and Frenchwoman Barbara Heftman, 44, were sailing from New Zealand to Australia.<\/p>\n

Australian police rescued the pair 210 nautical miles (390km) off Sydney amid 6m swells and gale-force winds.<\/p>\n

The sailors, on a circumnavigation of the globe, had activated an emergency beacon in turbulent seas on Tuesday, three days after their rudder broke.<\/p>\n

"We encountered enormous seas, waves the size of buildings coming at you constantly, winds that you can't stand up in, seas breaking, whiteness everywhere," Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n

Image copyright 9news.com.au
Image caption Nick Dwyer and Barbara Heftman tell of their relief in Sydney <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mr Dwyer said the couple's 40ft (12m) yacht "rolled" on Tuesday, prompting them to issue a distress call.<\/p>\n

"We weren't sure whether we were going to be rolled again and each time a wave hit we thought, 'is [this] the one that's going to take us?" Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n

After receiving the distress call, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) sent a jet to the remote location before asking police for help.<\/p>\n

New South Wales Police said it took their rescue boat more than 13 hours to reach the pair amid "treacherous conditions".<\/p>\n

"It was truly amazing, to think that somebody had to come that far to save us," Mr Dwyer said after arriving in Sydney on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

"I owe them my life. We owe them our lives. You can't put that into words."<\/p>\n

AMSA had been in regular contact with the experienced sailors since their rudder failed on Saturday, police said.<\/p>\n

The pair, who had been on a 10-year circumnavigation, will remain in Sydney while figuring out what to do next.<\/p>\n

"Our home's gone, we're alive, I expect to live a little bit longer and that'll be okay," Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Australian Martime Safety AuthorityImage caption The sailors say they owe their lives to rescuers A couple has told of facing "waves the size of buildings" when their yacht<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}