So what happens?

When you're at the end of a long journey, safely executed and you loose all of your power? If on a yacht there's no problem...hoist the sails and continue your journey. Except, you're 10 miles out to sea, in a reasonably busy shipping route and it's dark so once your power is exhausted you can show no Navigation lights.

The sensible thing to do of course is to call the Coastguard and make them aware of your position. They can then decide whether to; leave you out there and take the chance of you being struck by another vessel or ask for a lifeboat to launch to tow you into a safe anchorage.

This is exactly what happened last night to a group of well organised yachtsmen (and women) at the end of a passage from La Coruna in Northern Spain delivering a 42ft yacht to its' owner. We were called at about 9.55 and asked to proceed to a position about 10 miles south of St Aldhelm's head. Once on scene it was obvious that the crew knew what they were doing and so we left them to attach the tow to their own vessel which they did. Making about 7 1/2 knots we towed them back towards Swanage where they could await an engineer to fix their problem this morning.

What was clear was that they had had no company other than their own for the best part of a week as they were extremely chirpy and chatty. De-mob happy almost!

Anyway, sorry for the absence...call it writers block (and a skiing holiday). Happy Easter to you all.