TradeWinds is glad to report a happy ending to a tale of a crew member lost overboard.
So often, the missing are never found, but that is not the case with the extremely fortunate Vidam Perevertilov, chief engineer on board the 51-loa seismic survey ship Silver Supporter (built 1998).
After falling from the Fjord Shipping-operated vessel 400 nautical miles (741 km) from the tiny Austral Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean, he survived for more than 14 hours clinging to a fishing buoy before being rescued by his own vessel.
The engineer fell at 4am local time on 16 February, without a life jacket, as the ship made a supply run from New Zealand's port of Tauranga to the remote UK territory of Pitcairn.
As dawn broke, he spotted a black dot on the horizon and decided to swim to it.
Wise choice
This turned out to be a good decision. The fishing buoy supported him for the rest of his lonely vigil.
Perevertilov later told his son, Marat, he had been feeling dizzy after finishing a night shift in the engine room, and had walked out on to the deck to recover, but plunged from the vessel.
"He doesn’t remember falling overboard. He may have fainted," Marat told New Zealand media outfit Stuff.
However, Perevertilov, 52, does remember regaining consciousness to see his ship sailing away into the night.
The crew did not notice he was missing for six hours.
The vessel then sent a distress call and a French navy aircraft joined the search from Polynesia.
"His will to survive was strong, but he told me until the sun came up he was struggling to stay afloat," Marat said.
At 6pm local time that day, the ship was in a set search pattern after Perevertilov's colleague heard a faint voice.
Perevertilov was pulled from the water exhausted but unhurt.
The chief engineer decided against taking the buoy as a souvenir.
Marat said: "He said he wanted to leave it there, so it could save another person’s life."
