Tuesday 9 August 2011

One more day

So I've been away on holiday for a week or so and, with the wonders of facebook, twitter and e-mail knew that I was missing lots of action. This is normal when I am on holiday and generally it is followed by a quiet patch when I return!

Not this time...no sooner had I unpacked my bag and put in the first load of washing than my pager went off. I hitched a lift to the boathouse with Des Fitzgerald (a retired crewmember and a real gent) and soon found us heading further west than we've been for many a year (Gav had to check the chart to discover where Mupe Rocks are!)

Once there we put Matt, our resident marine engineer, onboard who then diagnosed the problem as a fuel issue and in pretty short time fixed it sufficiently for the vessel to proceed on its way to Weymouth.

A few short hours later the pagers went off again for another slightly unusual shout. Dave T mentioned that this was probably the only time that we have launched the ALB and turned immediately to port! It was also probably the shortest ever eta for the ALB...we were on scene within 15 seconds!

It turned out that a passing large cabin cruiser had towed in a small broken down speedboat and had subsequently run ashore on a small reef called the berry. Poor compensation for an act of helpfulness if you ask me!

Anyway, the ILB and various crewmembers in drysuits soon had the boat off it's rocky perch and on their way to Poole. No doubt expensive damage has been done but at least they were afloat and under their own power.

2 comments:

Nick Marlow said...

Good to have you back and keeping our waters safe Lifeboat John! Good holiday?

lifeboatjohn said...

A pleasure Mr Marlow...yes, Spain was good!