The shock is deep. The head stands still. The world holds its breath.

The mind refuses to accept reality. And yet there was this tragic accident at sea. Our friends Volker & Annelie Frank from SV Escape had a fatal accident.

On their way from Bermuda to Halifax they had to be rescued with serious injuries. The ship was professionally brought to Halifax. There is currently no more information available.

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At the end of March we spent some nice days with the two in Les Saints in Guadeloupe. And met again in Falmouth Harbor in Antigua at the beginning of April. There we spent a wonderful evening with many sailing friends eating sushi and a few days later Volker served an excellent salmon on Escape.

Volker is also from Solingen and already before their departure in 2019 we met and talked about our travelling plans, how to deal with the companies and where the journey should go. How great was the joy when we met the two of them again at the end of March on Les Saints.

Since 2019, the two had been living on Escape, crossing the Atlantic and travelling the Caribbean and the East Coast of the USA, which turned out to be their favourite coast. We experienced the two of them in the middle of their lives: happy, content and at peace with themselves.

Both had invited us for 2023 to accompany them on a leg in the Pacific, which we gladly accepted.

And now their life is over. An accident. Gone.

The shock sits deep and paralyses us. We cannot comprehend it.

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On Friday, 8 July, there will be a funeral in Mechernich, Germany. We will interrupt our journey and pay our last respects to Volker and Annemarie.

 Update by the 23rd of July:

The following account was written by veteran cruiser Sheldon Stuchell based on reports from the two crew aboard the cruising boat Escape and official Coast Guard reports. While the incident and the loss of the skipper and his wife, Germans Karl and Annamarie Frank, are alarming, we bring you this report not to be sensational but because the detail that Sheldon is able to provide shows just how quickly a situation at sea can go from normal to a tragedy in a split second, even to experienced sailors who were doing everything in a seamanlike fashion.

Anatomy of a Tragedy at Sea - Blue Water Sailing (bwsailing.com)