On Monday 15th August the 100 ft maxi yacht, Rambler 100, capsized off west Cork during the Rolex Fastnet Race with 21 crew members on board. 16 of the crew managed to scale the upturned hull but five were swept away from the boat. In the ensuing rescue, the Baltimore RNLI lifeboat rescued the 16 crew from the upturned hull, and a further search was instigated for the five crew still in the water.

The Irish Coast Guard, a long time customer of Nowcasting Pro from MeteoGroup Offshore used the information which is integrated into the SARMap – Search and Rescue Mapping software programme (from Applied Science Associates in the USA) to generate a search pattern and most likely location for the five casualties.

The system bases its projections on the known point and time the casualties started to drift and on the forecast wind, wave and current conditions from Nowcasting Pro. Once the scenario was developed , the Coast Guard tasked a local Dive Boat which was close to the scene, and manned by one of the Baltimore Lifeboat crew, to go to the identified search area where the five crew were found very quickly. All five of the crew were taken on board the rescue boat, one of whom who was suffering from severe hypothermia and was airlifted to hospital where she made a full recovery.