Yacht shipping firms like DYT Yacht Transport provide a useful service to yacht owners who want to move their yachts across oceans. Recently one of DYT's ships, the float on/float off carrier Super Servant 4 helped out a boat making a transatlantic passage on its own bottom. Super Servant 4 diverted six miles from its course to St Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to assist French double handed sailors Thierry Chabagny and Erwan Tabarly who were competing in the Transat AG2R La Mondiale, a 3,890-mile double-handed race that began on April 6 from France and finished at the French Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy. Chabagny and Tabarly were sailing slowly aboard Gedimat, a 32-foot Figaro Beneteau II, which had been dismasted during a gale early in the race. The sailors were attempting to reach Madeira under jury rig. They had run out of diesel fuel and asked the master of Super Servant 4 via radio if his vessel could provide some diesel to tide them over.
Super Servant 4 changed course and steamed to Gedimat's position where the ship delivered two drums of 20 liters of diesel. The two drums were thrown into the water, connected to a third empty drum with a light. The crew was successful in bringing the drums aboard with no additional assistance in the 20-knot breezes and two-meter swells.
Chabagny and Tabarly reached Madeira at 5:00 am on April 30.
Super Servant 4 seen below (Onne Van Der Wal photo)
