SYDNEY, September 7. /TASS/. Russian round-the-world sailors Evgeny Kovalevsky, of Tomsk, and Stanislav Berezkin, of Novosibirsk, arrived safely in Australia after suffering a shark attack and the wreck of their vessel in the Coral Sea off of Queensland, Australia, crew captain Berezkin told TASS.

The captain noted that the voyagers will soon head to Brisbane to rest and "plan the continuation of the expedition." "Of course, we have no intention of ending our journey. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to find a new inflatable catamaran quickly; it is a rather complicated vessel in its construction, and besides, it requires special materials for its manufacture. We will not be able to wait until we can find the right workshop to build it, which will take about eight months," he said, noting that the Australian Maritime Safety Authority did not allow the Russian sailors to tow the wreck of their catamaran to shore, requiring the expedition to continue on a hard-hulled vessel.

Berezkin described how the crew had to evacuate the catamaran, the voyage of which was being sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society (RGS). "Sharks bit through one tank right after we left Vanuatu. We tried to repair it, but due to the specifics of the damage site and difficult weather conditions, it was not possible to patch the breach. A day later, the sharks attacked again and damaged the second tank, after which the catamaran began to rapidly lose buoyancy and we had to activate the emergency beacon," he said.

It was still difficult to pinpoint the exact route that the expedition will take in continuing its round-the-world voyage, he said. But, the sailors hope to find a new boat in Australia and, "leaving the Australian Cairns, go to Jakarta, then cross the Indian Ocean and to get to Europe through the Suez Canal, then return, completing the circumnavigation of the globe, to Kronstadt."

About the voyage

Berezkin and Kovalevsky began their expedition, titled "Along the Path of Russian Round-the-World Navigators," under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS), on July 1, 2021 in St. Petersburg. It follows the same routes once followed by noted explorers Ivan Kruzenshtern, Fyodor Litke and Thaddeus Bellingshausen. Altogether, the voyage is to cover about 35,000 nautical miles.

The incident marked the expedition’s second shipwreck. The first occurred on February 28 when the sailors had just started traversing the Pacific Ocean only to experience a shipwreck in which they lost their first boat, a trimaran. They then continued their expedition with a different, but somewhat similar watercraft, an inflatable catamaran, which had been designed by the same boatbuilder as the trimaran. The new vessel, dubbed "Russian Ocean Way - TION," was donated by Tion, a Russian ventilation, air cleaning and air decontamination company.