Families of crew aboard missing yacht appeal for help in continued search 19/6/06

Polly Bielecki, whose father Jacek Bielecki and her 19-year-old brother Jack are currently missing in the Atlantic aboard their 41ft yacht Free Spirit is appealing for help.

Communications from the yacht, on the first leg of her two-year circumnavigation from Newport Rhode Island to the Mediterranean, have not been made since last Thursday since being hit by the tail end of Hurricane Alberta.

Although a thorough search of the area surrounding the last EPIRB signal was carried out by the US and Canadian Coastguards, the search was suspended yesterday. The last known position of the Free Spirit was 41′ 39’125 N 063′ 44′ 904W.

The family of the crew on board are now appealing to any vessels in this surrounding area to be on the look out for any information or evidence that could aid the successful rescue of the crew and report this immediately to the authorities as they still firmly believe that there is every chance that they are still afloat.

Polly Bielecki confirmed that although the rescue team have so far been unsuccessful in their search and have only found debris this can not be conclusively linked to Free Spirit.

Other crew members aboard Freespirit are Richard White, 34 from the USA and Molly Finn, 19.