16 aircraft taking part all now temporarily based in the Azores. The search intensifies On December 14 wind speeds dropped to Force 9. By now four aircraft and 17 ships were participating in the search operation. Signals of Münchens emergency buoy were received. At 19:00 the British freighter King George picked up an empty life raft at . The same day, Hapag-Lloyd's freighter Erlangen found and identified three of Münchens lighters. The following day, December 15, a British Nimrod patrol aircraft discovered two orange objects shaped like buoys at and the salvage tug Titan recovered a second life raft. A third one was located at the next day by MS Badenstein; all were empty. A yellow barrel was also sighted that day. On December 17, at 13:00 Düsseldorf Express salvaged Münchens emergency buoy. By now wind speeds dropped to Force 3. The freighter Starlight found two life belts, at Sealand Consumer picked up a fourth empty life raft. Also three life vests were sighted, two of them by Starlight and another one by Evelyn. The search is called off The international search operation officially ended in the evening of December 20, a week after it had begun. The West German government and Hapag-Lloyd decided to search for two more days, with British and American forces supporting them. Altogether 13 aircraft from the United Kingdom, the United States, Portugal and Germany, and nearly 80 merchant and naval ships had searched for München or her crew. On February 16, the car transporter Don Carlos salvaged the damaged starboard-side lifeboat of München, the last object discovered from her. Investigation The subsequent investigation into the disappearance of München centred on the starboard lifeboat and in particular the forward block from which it had hung. The pins, which should have hung vertically, had been bent back from forward to aft, indicating the lifeboat hanging below it had been struck by a huge force, that had run from fore to aft of the ship, and had torn the lifeboat from its pins. The lifeboat normally hung above the waterline. With the existence of rogue waves then considered so statistically unlikely as to be near impossible, the investigation finally concluded that the severe weather had somehow created an 'unusual event' that had led to the sinking of München. As the science behind rogue waves was explored and more fully understood, it was accepted that not only did