this is super yacht news with eSysman
hi welcome back to the channel okay so it is 24th of December so if you hear any awful
Christmas music playing in the background that's where it's coming from so I apologize for that
in advance but what can you do- all right so we'll move on to the first story we've got an update on
m/y Victorious now if you saw the last video we told the story of Victorious rescuing some people
from a stricken catamaran got some more details on that story because it was very there were very
little little details at the time the thing is a small correction the date we gave in the first
video was the 12th of December but it actually happened on the 14th of December I'll give you
a quick run over the story again so the distress goal from the catamaran was picked up at the Fort
de France Maritime rescue coordination Center in Martinique they received a distress signal from
the catamaran which was the name of the catamaran was the star one which was approximately 500
Miles off the island of Martinique so the surgeon rescue center they issues they issued a series of
distress relays in order to reach vessels in the area distress relay basically is is what it sounds
like it's they relay the distress message from the vessel and they send it out that there's 2
types of distress there's an audible one which is a you know a distressed call which will explain to
you over the radio what's happening there's also something called DSC which is digital selective
calling which sends out a- it's like an email if you like but on the radio on the bridge you'll
get an alarm that you have to press a button on to stop that alarm it's very loud and that will tell
you that there is a distress and it will there'll be a message on the screen about the distress
so they sent these out in the area now emote Victorious was sailing across the Atlantic towards
the Caribbean I think they were going to St Martin and they picked up the distress and the distress
relay and they altered course and they were given a search pattern by the coordination Center
now they spent 16 at the next 16 hours searching for these for this vessel and also the information
that they had was very scarce and they attempted to contact the catamarans crew by radio but there
was no response and the information they had about the last known location was 23 hours old now that
obviously that they they'd gone into a life raft at this point and the life raft could have drifted
so it was really tricky to find someone when the data is 23 years 23 hours a whole should I say
on the 15th of December while completing the search operation in the second area they've been
given Victoria spotted a red flare approximately one nautical mile away now I got a photograph
here from the the crew or from the captain of of Victorious and it is the strangest photograph and
I actually contacted him and said what is going on there what what are they using there this
thing shining into the sky it kind of reminded me of that the things they do in in New York every
year with 911 building and they they send those signals up into the sky and I asked him what it
was and he said he said there is no device he said it's just a distress rocket he said the wide beam
is simply an accidental effect on the photo since it was taken at night while the vessel was rolling
and pitching or it's God's torch pointing us at the people in distress anyway she went to the
location and rescued the five people the captain also gave me this Photograph and you can see it's
the crew and the crew of the people the people that they rescued the crew of the catamaran and
I asked them which ones were which and he said he doesn't want to say who they are because
they're all wearing the crew uniform of the yacht Victorious because they would have been pulled
out the water they've been soaking wet and the only clothing that they will have available on
board is his crew uniform so they gave him crew uniform but he said just look for the happiest
people in the photograph which I thought was great so yeah so that was just an update for you there
they also were given a certificate of Merit from the from the Martinique search and rescue
center which I'll put on screen now so that's a great story isn't it especially for Christmas
all right so we'll move on now to the title of this video you might remember we reported on
this story involving a yacht called Utopia 4 and an oil product tanker named the Mt
Tropic Breeze now unbelievably this was a year ago today 24th of December 2021 we reported on this
I mean time has flown isn't it but for those of you who missed it because we have had almost
doubles our subscribers in 2022 so a lot of people probably didn't don't remember this story so what
happened is there was Utopia four and this oil tanker in the Bahamas Utopia 4 was moving at
approximately 19 knots at night in the Bahamas when she came across this tanker she crashed into
the rear quarter of the tanker and as a result of that the tanker sank now the crew of the tanker
went into a life raft and the crew of Utopia 4 assisted with the rescue of them another yacht
in the area m/y Amara they came to the rescue as well and after they rescued the people from
the life raft they were put onto Amara and the reason why is Utopia fought was also taking on
water and they weren't sure if they were going to sink or not at that time middle of the night
and then after that they headed back to port and m/y Amara escorted the yacht back to Port just to
ensure that everybody was safe so another another great story about searching rescue from a from
a motor yacht the yacht was owned by a Market America co-founder J.R ridinga and the vessel
was on Charter at the time in the Bahamas and you can see this footage here this is footage of the
charter guests being thrown off their chairs at the moment of impact so quite a brutal moment of
impact there shows you the speed that the vessel was moving at for that to happen so following the
following the accidents a series of allegations were made against the captain of the yacht who
was on watch at the time of the incident now I've mentioned in other videos that sometimes
on a smaller yacht the captain will take a watch and in this case that was what was happening now
with what it was alleged is that he was on the bridge with a lookout somebody who's normally a
deckhand or maybe the boson and he's not qualified to take a watch but he's able to work with the
watch keeper to keep a lookout with binoculars and stuff like that so it was claimed that the
captain who was on watch at the time he actually left the bridge 10 minutes prior to the accident
and he left this look out on the bridge on his own which is illegal there's an allegation as we
have not been able to confirm that independently it was also later claimed that the captain was
under the influence of alcohol again something that we've not been able to confirm independently
it was it was alleged that as the yacht arrived back in the Bahamas after the accident and the
captain was at the at the Hound trying to dock the vessel that he almost crashed The Vessel and was
being shouted at by the Port Authorities on the radio to to move over because he was pointingly
out in the right wrong direction at this point The Story Goes that the chief officer took over
and safely dubbed The Vessel a number of the crew sustained injuries in the accident and they were
taken to hospital some some have described their injuries as life-changing so a number of the crew
on board Utopia fought at the point of impact were knocked over or subsequently afterwards
because the boat was rolling quite a lot at the time on the BR when you're on the way you have
stabilizers so the stabilizers work underway but when you stop you can put them into zero
speed and they will continue to stabilize the vessel but you have to press a button on there
as as you stop the stabilizer stop functioning and because he wasn't on the bridge he never
did that and the vessel was rolling quite heavily and it caused some of the crew to be injured more
now the owner J.R Risinger he died in 2022 he had a pulmonary pulmonary embolism whilst on another
yacht in Croatia so the vessel got taken out of the water investigations happening because of of
the accident a U.S Coast Guard were involved because the vessel is a U.S registered yacht
and the crew were the crew went home but there were allegations from former crew that they
never received their final salaries and also some of them required Medical Treatments and
surgeries and the yacht owners refused to pay for some of that for some of the surgeries and and
some of the other medical expenses so they said they didn't receive their final salaries after
the boat was recovered and some crew allegedly stopped being paid two days after the accident
now that reminds me of another ship that did that very thing to the crew the crew were only paid up
until the day she founded and that ship was the Titanic and the story goes that the crew only
got paid until the day the ship sank they didn't get the final salary of that month because they
only got paid up until the day because he's like well the ship sank so you don't get you didn't
work the rest of the month but that was over 100 years ago like I thought we moved on from that
after 100 years right so unfortunately the crew had to file lawsuits against the yacht and the
yacht owner and they are currently going through the courts the thing is the crew sacrificed a lot
to work at Sea I'm not I'm not trying to paint a sad picture or anything but we go away to Sea
for long periods of time you know we live in small crew quarters chair cabins we sacrificed a lot we
get paid well but we sacrificed a lot to do those jobs and they're working I mean they were injured
in the service of the boat which is owned by the yacht owner right so it's it's it's unfortunate
when the owner refuses to pay or allegedly refuses to pay for any anything like this now the yacht is
because the yacht is U.S registered it falls under the Jones act which is a U.S federal law which
has been around since the 1920s which requires ship owners to provide medical care to All crew
now we went to the owner of the vessel now the the vessel is now owned by the Widow of J.R Riddinger
her name is Lauren Ridinger and the The Vessel has since been repaired by the way and is up for sale
now we got a statement back from her legal department and it says that the motor yacht
Utopia fought is aware of allegations made by former crew members in regard to the unfortunate
collision with the Mt Tropic breeze on December 24 2021 since the incident occurred management has
cared for the crew of The Vessel and can confirm known medical bills and daily maintenance have
been paid in conformance with U.S maritime law due to pending crew lawsuits counterclaims and
out of respect of the legal process it would be inappropriate for us to comment further
at this time so that's the official word from Lauren Ridinger and her lawyers all right so
I'm gonna leave it there I hope that we'll have a Christmas miracle maybe and then they will all
get paid the money that they're owed for their final salaries especially these days when the
cost of living crisis that we're all we all seem to be in all over the world one would hope that
they will get their final money all right so I'm going to leave it there don't forget to vote in
our Poll for super yacht of the year this is based on the one that had the most impact on
the yachting World in 2022 not necessarily about which one you find is your favorite yacht now if
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have a great time and I'll catch up with you soon bye-bye all right guys I'm gonna leave it there
I hope you have a great Christmas if that's what you if that's what you
all right guys I'm going to leave it there I hope you have a great Christmas or whatever it is that
you do yeah that last bit up all right guys have a great time and I'll see you soon bye-bye