LONDON (AFP) — The injured captain of a storm-lashed ship loaded with fresh fruit from Latin America was airlifted ashore to Britain on Saturday after winter gales caused chaos at sea.
The Lithuanian skipper of the Horncliff, a Liberian-flagged refrigerated cargo ship carrying fruit from Costa Rica to England, sustained spinal injuries and internal bleeding as the vessel hit a fierce storm 180 miles (290 kilometres) south of Ireland.
The 12,887-ton vessel had 31 people on board, including six passengers, among them honeymooning German couple Barney and Suzanne Carstensen.
The passengers were on the bridge with the captain when the ship was rocked by big waves. Some 90 containers were washed overboard.
A Royal Navy helicopter flew the unidentified captain and the passengers to Royal Cornwall Hospital at Treliske, southwest England.
"We had changed course to try and get away from the storm when the ship was hit by three big waves," said Suzanne Carstensen, 50, whose ex-sailor husband suffered a fractured shoulder and broken ribs.
"I thought it was our last moment of life. The captain and my husband crashed over the floor and the captain was in big pain crying out," she said.
"The ship went right over and then the containers came off the ship and it came back up. Then we knew we had survived. It was really horrible and you cannot imagine unless you are there."
The couple got married last year and went on the Horncliff -- which has a handful of staterooms for paying passengers -- to see the Caribbean while on honeymoon.
Elsewhere, 14 crew were airlifted off the trawler The Spinning Dale, which was pushed into rocks off St Kilda, a remote and uninhabited archipelago off the Scottish west coast, early Friday.
Conservation body the National Trust for Scotland has set scores of rat traps across the island, famed for its seabird population including puffins and guillemots, amid fears rodents from the ship could escape and eat birds' eggs.
"It certainly has the potential to be devastating to St Kilda, which is a World Heritage Site for its sea bird colonies," Susan Bain, the organisation's local manager, told the BBC.
Meanwhile salvage crews were heading to work on the cargo ferry Riverdance, which ran aground late Thursday off the seaside resort of Blackpool, northwest England, where thousands of packets of biscuits have washed ashore.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
