Bad weather on Sunday sunk the dreams of two groups of sailing and history aficionados after a sailboat built along the lines of centuries-old Chinese design failed in its bid to cross the Taiwan Strait.
The Nan Tai No. 2, which was about 6m long by 2m wide, was meant to follow the sailing route taken by Chinese between the 12th and 19th centuries to what is now Tainan, but it capsized between Kinmen and Penghu.
The boat had been commissioned by the Tainan Culture Association and the Fulong Chinese Sail Boat Development Center in Fujian, China. It was built in China over the past three years at a cost of 50,000 yuan (US$7,257 at the current exchange rate).
A four-man Chinese crew trained for the trip for two years, but their training could not overcome the challenging weather on Sunday.
The boat set sail from Xiamen, China, at 10am, but just three nautical miles (5.6km) away it encountered bad weather and by 3pm the boat had capsized about 15 nautical miles off the coast of Kinmen.
A support vessel escorting the Nan Tai No. 2 picked up the four crew members and initially tried to tow the sailboat the rest of the way to its destination.
However, as the winds and waves worsened, with swells reaching up to 2m, the support vessel’s captain had to cut the sailboat loose.
The support vessel eventually arrived in Anping Fishing Port (安平漁港) in Tainan at 4:30am on Monday.
The organizers said they would make another attempt to sail across the Strait aboard a similar sailboat in two years.
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