At around 9 o’clock this morning, a missing surfer got in touch with his family on Borkum – following a dramatic night on the North Sea. The islander, aged around 70, had detached himself from his rig early on after experiencing problems with his equipment and subsequently drifted on the water with only his board. The tide initially carried him upstream along the Ems, before bringing him back towards Borkum later that night. The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (DGzRS) had previously coordinated a night-time search operation involving several vessels and helicopters. The situation had already been alarming on Thursday afternoon: a woman had found a surfer’s clothing on Borkum beach and reported at around 2.20 pm that the man had presumably not returned to shore.
The sea rescue cruiser HAMBURG from the DGzRS station in Borkum was subsequently dispatched, supported by the customs vessel “Nesserland” and the ADAC rescue helicopter “Christoph 26” from Sanderbusch. The emergency services conducted an intensive search of the relevant sea area off Borkum. At the same time, the island’s volunteer fire brigade combed the beach. In the late afternoon, the rescuers initially called off the search without success. At that point, there was no trace of the man, who was wearing nothing but a dark wetsuit.
Large-scale night-time search following a sighting of a sailboat
At around 9.40 pm, the pilot tender “Borkum” reported a suspected sighting of a red sail north-west of Borkum, between Seehundsbank and the red navigation buoy number 16. It was reported that the sail matched the equipment belonging to the missing person. The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Bremen, the German maritime rescue coordination centre operated by the DGzRS, subsequently coordinated a renewed search operation. In addition to the HAMBURG and the “Borkum”, the Dutch sea-rescue vessel “Jan en Titia Visser” from the Eemshaven station, a Dutch search-and-rescue helicopter and, later, a German police helicopter took part in the search.
The emergency services faced challenging conditions: a north-westerly wind of up to six on the Beaufort scale, headwinds against the current and a water temperature of around 16 degrees Celsius made the night-time search considerably more difficult. A report of an object sighted on a sandbank – possibly the sail again – was not confirmed. At 1.45 am, the MRCC Bremen finally called off the search once again. At that point, the missing person remained unaccounted for.
A happy ending on Friday morning
The person who originally reported the incident informed the authorities at around 9 am on Friday morning that the missing man was with relatives on Borkum. The man had spent the night on the North Sea with only his surfboard and had managed to get back ashore under his own steam. “He was extremely lucky. We are very pleased that this operation has had a happy ending,” said Tilman Hellberg, captain of the sea-rescue vessel HAMBURG. The water temperature of 16 degrees Celsius could have led to life-threatening hypothermia had he been exposed to it for any longer.
In the upcoming issue of *surf* (6/2026), we’ll be sharing tips on what to do in an emergency and the best equipment for making an emergency call at sea!
