A DONEGAL man is being hailed a hero after rescuing a shipmate who fell overboard.
Buncrana man Sean McCarter came to the rescue when a colleague on board the Derry round-the-world clipper ship fell into the sea.
Andrew Taylor (46) from London was rescued from the Pacific Ocean.
The incident happened in rough weather with 35 knots of wind and clear visibility in daylight.
Skipper Sean (32) reported that he was working with Andrew on a sail change near the bow when he went over the side. Sean immediately went back to the helm, stopped the yacht and initiated the MOB (man overboard) procedure.
Said Sean, former RNLI volunteer: “The moment he went out of sight the Pacific all of a sudden becomes a very big place.
“We had our man overboard position marked on the chart which gives us a point to start searching from and we start going through the motions, trying to estimate where he might have drifted to with the wind and current.
“We started searching but I mean a needle in a haystack doesn’t even describe what we were looking for.”
He said his team mate would have been unconscious and possibly dead if he had not been wearing a dry suit.
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