SANDAKAN: The boat used by members of the 1Malaysia Sabah-Perlis “Fly the Jalur Gemilang” Expedition broke down on the first day of the challenge on Friday night.
Expedition chief Azhar Ariffin yesterday said water entered the engine at 8pm in the waters of Lahad Datu when they were on their way to Sandakan from Tambisan.
He said the engine stalled and they drifted for two hours.
“We made an SOS call to the Sandakan police marine who came to replace the oil in the tank,” said Azhar.
“We drifted for four kilometres before the marine police helped us,” he said
when met at the flag-off ceremony here yesterday.
Elopura assemblyman Au Kam Wah flagged off the expedition for the Sandakan-Kota Kinabalu sector.
The expedition team, using a 11.2-meter prototype Belacak boat, sailed off from Tawau last Friday and arrived in Sandakan at midnight yesterday. They will be arriving in Kota Kinabalu today before sailing off to Sarawak the following day.
“Once we set sail from Sarawak to Johor, there will be nothing but the open sea. We would be on our own then, without an escort.
“I think the most challenging part of the expedition will be the storms that we may encounter in our journey,” Azhar told reporters at a press conference at Harbour Square here yesterday.
Azhar will be venturing into the open seas for Perlis and is expected to arrive on Tuesday with his team of five Sandakan police marines who include a woman, Ainah Badean.
Ainah, the first woman to join the Jalur Gemilang Expedition, said she wanted to prove that women were capable of such adventures and would try her best to complete the expedition.
Meanwhile, Au congratulated the team for their efforts in interpreting the Merdeka spirit.
“We understand that even with a few technical difficulties, they (the expedition team) continued with the expedition. This is what we mean by patriotic spirit because they step forward to welcome any challenges.
“Their experience provides a deeper meaning of Merdeka when our flag, Jalur Gemilang, is waved across the South China Sea all the way to Perlis,” said Au.
This is the third Jalur Gemilang expedition with the first two held in 2009 and 2010.