A Dutch fishing boat rescued a British man in the Channel after his kayak capsized and he was left clinging to a buoy for days.
Teunis de Boer, the captain, said he saw the kayaker waving frantically as his boat Madeleine sailed by.
“He was clearly in distress,” the captain said, according to Dutch media.
After the man was given water and a chocolate bar, he was airlifted to a hospital by French authorities.
The drama unfolded late on Thursday morning several miles west off the French coast, in a shipping lane of the Dover Strait, also known as the Pas de Calais.
The boat captain said he was checking they were not steering too close to the Colbart Nord buoy when he suddenly saw something moving around on it. “I picked up the binoculars and saw a young man just in his swimming trunks waving at us like a madman,” he told the De Telegraaf website.
URKER VISSERS REDDEN BRITSE KAJAKKER | De bemanning van de kotter BL936072 ‘Madelaine’ van rederij De Boer & Zonen, heeft rond 11 uur in het Kanaal een Engelse kajakker gered van een lichtboei. Hij werd bij toeval ontdekt toen de kotter in de buurt van de Cobalt-bank ging vissen. pic.twitter.com/8Oq1AZ1u2P
— EMK-vissers (@EMKvissers) October 27, 2022
They threw the Briton lifebuoys and hauled him on board. “He was covered in bruises and explained that he’d stayed alive by scraping mussels off the buoy and eating little crabs and seaweed,” Mr De Boer told public broadcaster NOS. He was dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia, so the crew wrapped him in blankets.
A French coastguard helicopter was quickly on the scene and flew the Briton to a hospital in nearby Boulogne.
What is less clear is how long he had survived clinging to the buoy. The fishing boat captain said the man had told them he had left Dover in his kayak on 15 October, 12 days before he was picked up.
In a statement, the French maritime prefect for the Channel and North Sea said, however, that he had left Dover around 48 hours earlier.
The prefecture warned anyone planning to cross the Channel of the risks involved in such an undertaking, pointing out that conditions were often very dangerous and more than 400 merchant ships passed through it every day.
Britse kajakker na dagen op een lichtboei door Nederlandse vissers gered. Maakt het goed. pic.twitter.com/0EEZ57mTxl
— EMK-vissers (@EMKvissers) October 27, 2022