The aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle collided with a sailboat on Friday morning off Toulon, announced the maritime prefecture of the Mediterranean. “The consequences are only material, the sailboat having dismasted, and no injuries are to be deplored”, she specifies.
The sailboat, about ten meters, flew the Polish flag. According to the account of the prefecture, the Charles-de-Gaulle belatedly detected its presence at a very short distance, shortly before 7:30 a.m., about 70 km to the south-east of the Hyères islands. “Despite an emergency maneuver to avoid this sailboat and in the absence of reaction from it, a collision occurred,” she continues.
Towing in Hyères
Radio contact was immediately established with the skipper, the only person on board, and an assistance team was dispatched to the sailboat.
Two boats from Charles-de-Gaulle secured the sailboat and prepared its towing, in weather conditions qualified as difficult. At the same time, the Mediterranean operations center, located at the Mediterranean maritime prefecture in Toulon, ordered the diversion of a tug to charter the sailboat to the port of Hyères.
“This collision does not call into question the training activity of the aircraft carrier Charles-de-Gaulle », Writes the prefecture. A technical investigation is also underway, as is systematic after a sea incident involving a French Navy vessel.