“Launch the lifeboat!”
We are onboard Kapitan Poinc, a 53-metre purpose-built Polish search and rescue (SAR) vessel. It is a freezing February morning in Gdynia, northern Poland, and although we huddle together like penguins behind the superstructure for warmth, the wind off the Baltic Sea bites into our bones.
The initial plan had been to board a different SAR ship further down the harbour and go past the breakwater out into the bay, but the port is locked up by ice, so we stay where we are and the crew decides on a demonstration of the “abandon ship!” drill.
The
