Packing winds of up to 241 km/h, Super Typhoon Mawar is leaving a trail of destruction across the US territory of Guam and other Pacific islands. It has also been the cause of the Pros sailboat, which left Seville in August 2019 to recreate the Magallanes-Elcano World Tour, has disappeared from the port of Apra, where it was anchored, the Friends of the Great Navigators association has reported. and Spanish Explorers.
Captain José Solá and two other Spanish crew members are safe at the home of some acquaintances on this island, controlled by Spain until 1898.
“Without ship here ends the expedition. The coast guard will patrol the coast tomorrow to see if they can locate it, but I have serious doubts that, in view of what I have been able to see this morning, the ship is. But in the end, hope is never lost,” said Pepe Solá
Through the GPS locator installed on the boat, it was verified in the first hours of the passage of the typhoon that it moved from its anchoring place, despite the fact that all measures had been taken to secure the sailboat, and in a subsequent partial visual inspection from the bay of the port of Apra has not been found.
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The port authority and the US Coast Guard have not found, at least so far, any sign of the ship's situation, according to the aforementioned association.
The Mawar typhoon, category 4 and with sustained winds of 200 kilometers per hour, has surprised this week on the island of Guam, an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the Pacific, the Spanish expedition that recreates the Tour of the World of Magellan-Elcano.
Solá insisted on the unusual strength of Typhoon Marwar, which has left the island of Guam in an “apocalyptic” state, without communications or water service, in the absence of assessing the material damage it has caused.
“It's been absolutely brutal, plus it's been an extraordinarily long typhoon. Normally a typhoon passes relatively quickly. This has lasted 36 hours with absolutely infernal winds,” he said.
The expedition, which left Seville in August 2019, had been on the island for about three weeks to proceed with the repair of a small problem in the starter motor and resume the trip “in perfect condition”.