Open Arms’ Rescue Fleet

The Open Arms rescue fleet is crucial for saving thousands of lives.

MY Open Arms is Open Arms’ flagship boat. It has travelled around the world and rescued more than 65,000 people in more than 70 humanitarian missions.

Sy Astral’s boat has saved 15,000 lives. In addition to carrying out surveillance tasks at sea, it is also our school boat—it also provides information, raises awareness, and expands knowledge about everything that happens in the Mediterranean.

Open Arms rescue fleet assists thousands of people amid a humanitarian emergency in the central Mediterranean. For example on

July 27th, 2023, mission 102 aboard the My Open Arms set sail after disembarking 73 rescued individuals. The Sy Astral joined the tugboat, which departed on a surveillance, observation, and denunciation mission.

The crew of My Open Arms located and rescued a very precarious wooden vessel with 24 people on board, including six women, nine minors, and a 3-year-old child. Additionally, they witnessed 2 cases of “hot returns,” carried out by the so-called Libyan “coastguards,” who had previously threatened and expelled us from the area. The Italian authorities then assigned Civitavecchia, Italy, over three days of navigation away, as the disembarkation port.

During their navigation, they encountered a critical situation: hundreds of people on board numerous boats in imminent danger of sinking, pleading for assistance. They responded to more than 15 distress calls from vessels in difficulty, paradoxically under the coordination of the Italian Coast Guard, rescuing 265 people onto our deck. Open Arms’ Mission 102 concluded with 777 assisted individuals, involving nine rescue operations and 12 assists to the Italian Coast Guard.

After disembarking 70 people in the port of Lampedusa, the tugboat MY Open Arms, with 195 people on board, set course for Brindisi, a new disembarkation port assigned by the Italian authorities due to adverse weather conditions, where they disembarked on Sunday.

Meanwhile, on the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the sailboat Sy Astral rescued two small metal boats, with a total of 62 people on board, including several medical cases and a woman in an advanced state of pregnancy and in labour, whom they eventually disembarked in Lampedusa in the early hours.

Over two weeks, SY Astral and My Open Arms teams assisted and rescued 985 people in the central Mediterranean.

The situation in the central Mediterranean is becoming increasingly critical.

With very limited resources but a great deal of determination, the Open Arms rescue fleet has saved over 68,000 people so far, yet the sea continues to claim innocent lives, and the Open Arms fleet is critical for the people’s survival.

Find out information about My Open Arms and SY Astral boats on the links below:

My Open Arms

SY Astral