One dead and one missing after the sinking of a sailboat in the bay of Ajaccio

A man lost his life and another is still missing after the sinking of a pleasure sailboat in the bay of Ajaccio on the night of Friday to Saturday, announced the maritime prefecture on Saturday, in its latest report.

The third passenger, a woman in her sixties, had managed to regain the coast on her own, after the Be Bop, an 11-meter sailboat, victim of strong winds on the Isle of Beauty, broke its anchorage and struck shoals near the coast, before breaking up and sinking.

Search continues to find second man

The sailboat, which had anchored at Isolella, on the south shore of the Gulf of Ajaccio, broke its moorings shortly after midnight.

The body of the man found, spotted during the night by the crew of one of the rescue helicopters, was brought back to the beach in Ajaccio around 6 a.m.

The search continues to find the second man who is still missing.

But the weather conditions are very difficult for the rescuers, while Corsica was on orange alert for strong wind and wave-submersion from Friday until Saturday at 4 a.m.: gusts of wind were measured at more than 90 km / h, with heavy seas and troughs of up to four meters.

Important means of rescue

During the night, a firefighter diver had carried out a cursory inspection of the wreckage without being able to find any trace of the two men then missing, a sixty-year-old and a seventy-year-old.

Significant resources were deployed for this rescue operation, including a civil security helicopter, a fire brigade helicopter, the intervention, assistance and rescue tug Abeille Flandre, pre-positioned in Corse-du-Sud, and a ship of the National Society for Rescue at Sea (SNSM), not to mention the land patrols of firefighters.

As of Friday, because of this orange alert, the prefecture had called for limiting travel, respecting bans on the use of fire, avoiding the coast and listening to the local media.