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MILITARY

Hope of finding missing German sailor fades

The search for a German sailor lost at sea continued on Friday, but hopes of finding the 18-year-old woman alive were fading.

Hope of finding missing German sailor fades
Photo: DPA

“We will do everything we can to find her,” a spokesman for the German navy said, cautioning that the time she had spent in the North Sea made chances of her still being alive were “small and dwindling.”

The officer candidate aboard the German navy training ship the Gorch Fock fell into the North Sea on Wednesday night around midnight while on watch.

At the time of the accident the three-mast ship, which is used to teach sailors basic seamanship, was at full sail and some 20 kilometres north of the island Norderney. The waters were the incident occurred were 17 degrees Celsius warm.

“Our experience shows that one can survive on average five to seven hours in such temperatures,” said Andreas Lubkowitz from the German Shipwreck Rescue Society.