Competition win!

wellworthy rescue, originally uploaded by lifeboatjohn.

It's rare to be reminded of past rescues and seldom does good come from bad, however, this morning both happened! Out of the blue a small missive from RNLI HQ appeared in my inbox. As a result of a photo taken on a shout in May I have won an RNLI photographic competition and the prize is a Pentax camera.........I think more for the publicity that the photo and story got in the national press than for the actual photo?

The story went like this and lasted but an hour:

At 8.01 on the first of May Portland Coastguard paged for an immediate launch of both the Swanage Lifeboats following a 'Mayday' call from the yacht 'Wellworthy'. The call had been picked up by both Portland and Solent Coastguard but there was no further information as to the nature of the distress. Luckily the 'Condor Vitesse' was in the area and they were able to confirm that a yacht had gone on to the rocks under Anvil Point. Both Swanage Lifeboats launched with the faster Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) arriving first. They found the badly damaged yacht being repeatedly pounded against the rocks, luckily the skipper and his crew had managed to scramble ashore. The ILB anchored and veered in to try and recover the casualties. After a number of attempts the skipper managed to jump into the lifeboat leaving his crew ashore as she was not confident enough to make the jump. With the Coastguard helicopter only 5 minutes away crewman John Deas was put ashore to sit with the casualty to comfort her until they could be lifted off. In the mean time the skipper was put aboard the All Weather Lifeboat (ALB) and treated for shock. Once the helicopter had completed its lift all units returned to Swanage. The skipper was landed at Swanage Pier where he was taken to Swanage Hospital for a check over. The lifeboat was recovered at 8.45.