Start of the season?

So now that the clocks have gone forward I consider that the season has started. Last night was our first Wednesday exercise of the year since time was advanced and for the first time in a long time we launched in the light.

To watch us there were even a few hardy souls braving the bracing wind to see us make our splash. I just hope they got a better photo of us than we got of them.

And it was a good 'real-time' exercise where Rob put the crew onboard (and the ILB) through their paces with some simple but realistic scenarios. Mostly it went according to plan!

What didn't though was our post exercise pint and a sing song in the Red Lion. Once we'd got comfortable and begun to sing a few tunes (assisted this time by Robin, and Mike and Jim Etherington) our pagers sounded to spoil our fun...typical. So the back bar cleared quickly and soon we were heading out to offer our assistance.

It was a fairly typical shout, indeed, save for geography identical to the last. A yacht with engine and various other gear failures was struggling to make headway 4 miles to the East of the bay. Once on scene we rigged a tow and decided, because of the forecast winds, to take her into Poole. All went smoothly despite some difficulty of manoeuvring a 15 metre yacht alongside a 12 metre lifeboat. Nevertheless, she was soon secure alongside the quay and we made our way back to the boathouse to be ready for further service by 3am.

Think of those crew who had to be up for work this morning...

March shout

There's nothing worse than sitting down to a Sunday roast only to be called from the table by a buzzing pager. However, needs must and it would seem that most of the crew left half eaten roasts to attend this evening's shout. Once we had assembled, it turned out that we were heading out to a 33ft yacht which had lost nearly all power in a dying breeze and so were unable to start their engine and were drifting pretty much at the mercy of the tide in the tidal race at St Aldhelm's race. Once on scene we put Rob aboard and rigged up a tow prior to towing them back to our mooring in Swanage. After an 8 mile tow we soon had them attached to our mooring and safely ashore.

I'm now sat here typing and enjoying cold crumble!

Both boats

Due to a rather busy day yesterday I failed to mention yesterday that both boats were busy on Wednesday afternoon with another shout. This time it was a yacht which had gone aground in slight seas just to the west of Chapman's Pool. Luckily for them it was a rising tide so the merest of pulls from the ILB soon brought them off into deeper water. Once there the bilges were checked by the skipper for water ingress before the vessel was declared fit to proceed on her passage to Weymouth. Once they were on their way both boats headed back to station. Job done.

One of the great things about shouts like this during the working week is that there are always crew out of town so lots of our less experienced crew get a shout. Good for experience and good for moral.

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.

Grappling

is our chosen method of freeing vessels from entanglement in ropes and nets.


Weirdly we did none of this for the first few years that I was on the crew. However, as the years pass it seems to become more and more common. Is there more fishing gear out there? Is it less clearly marked? Are the tides stronger than they used to be? Do yacht skippers keep a poorer lookout than they used to? Who can say...all I know is that we seem to do more of this each year.


This was one very well equipped and competently crewed vessel which we helped out last year in the height of summer.

MOB

Falling overboard is never a nice thing to do.

When you are 6 miles out to sea, sailing two handed and on a Gaff rigged cutter with huge amounts of rope, sail and rigging it's even worse.

The couple we went to assist last night were in just this situation. Anticipating a rising wind the skipper planned ahead and began to rig reefing lines on the booom to take in more sail prior to night-fall. One slightly larger than normal wave, a wet deck and a slip followed. Luckily he was wearing his lifeline so didn't get left behind the rapidly sailing yacht. Luckily his wife was efficient, capable and clear thinking.

She tried to help him onboard, this didn't work. She tied him alongside and sent a 'PanPan'. Soon every vessel in the area was on it's way, rescue 106 and us too. As we arrived on scene we heard the lady talking to rescue 106. There was little they could do with him strapped alongside so they suggested that she could cut him adrift and they could pick him out of the water. She considered this and suggested that as he was OK perhaps it would be best to wait for us!

Once on scene we put two crew onboard to asses the situation. Without further ado Gav and I hoisted the fellow onboard and began to asses his condition. Despite having been in the water for near to 45 minutes he seemed remarkably well. However he did have a head injury so we decided that the best course of action would be to get him onto the lifeboat and lift him off there to be taken to hospital. After a couple of runs in by the Mersey (and a slight collision) it was decided that a transfer was perhaps too risky given the relatively stable condition of the casualty.

We re-assessed the situation and decided to continue to sail the boat towards Poole, dry the casualty, get him warm and continue to monitor his condition. Before long we were enjoying a spanking sail in a lovely boat in superb conditions. Arriving in Poole was interesting as it was Thursday fireworks night and very busy on the marina and harbour. Luckily the lads from Poole lifeboat were in the boathouse so they cleared a bit of space for us and we soon had the boat alongside. An ambulance was waiting the check over the casualty and it seems as though he was fine thankfully.

A cup of coffee followed then home to bed...

(Apologies for the photo, there should be better on the station website)

Update:

Two rather complumentary quotes from the MCA...

Andy Jenkin, Watch Manager at Portland Coastguard said

"The man's wife deserves a great deal of praise for the calm way in
which she dealt with the emergency on their beautifully maintained
boat. They are clearly an experienced, competent couple and
throughout this rather frightening experience they maintained a
dialogue between the two of them on what they would do next. Harness
lines, radio, lifejackets, her competency using the radio, and the
calm way information was relayed. We couldn't ask for more from an
albeit surprised customer of the United Kingdom's search and rescue
services!

"Our grateful thanks are also due to the Swanage RNLI lifeboat crew
for the extremely professional and sympathetic way they handled this
very unusual incident."

And this month we will

mainly be rescuing yachts. I've spoken before about how we seem to get clusters of similar casualties. So far this June 3/4 of our shouts have been to yachts. Encouragingly they have all been genuine problems which couldn't be sorted out without outside assistance. They have also all involved knowledgeable and capable skippers.

This mornings shout was to a yacht 18 miles SE of Anvil Point. He had become tangled up with a line attached to some fishing gear and was effectively anchored to the sea bed. He had the presence of mind to hoist a ball in his rigging denoting that he was at anchor. The obvious thing to do but seldom done.

(photo thanks to the boat camera)

Lucky

A yacht's mast requires a network of wires to keep it vertical. If one of these wires is lost the mast tends to fall over. We've seen this lots of time. With presence of mind and quick reactions this can be avoided by turning the yacht so that the missing wire or 'stay' is on the downwind side of the mast. The strain will then be taken by other wires.

Yesterday's shout involved just this situation. Just after 2 in the afternoon the crew were paged to assist a yacht with rigging failure 10 miles to the south of St Aldhelm's Head. About 40 minutes later they were on scene and put two crew members onboard so as to help stabilise the rig and prepare for the passage back to Swanage. Luckily, with the prevailing wind direction, the wind was pushing the mast forwards and so the vessel could be sailed back to Swanage under Mainsail alone.

Once in Swanage the yacht was attached to the lifeboat mooring and the skipper was re-united with his wife.

Job done...

Quickie

Just as I pulled into the drive last night Jo ran down the road jesticulating wildly. Not that this is in itself an unusual occurance mind you! After a few moments I twigged that her pager had just gone off and that we had a shout on our hands.................in she jumped and we drove down to the boathouse.

Martin and Rob were both away so Dave took the boat and, due in part to the nature of the job we took a relatively in-experienced crew. We arrived on scene just off Anvil point about 5 minutes later to find a 35ft yacht with damaged rigging and engine failure. To compound his problems he had anchored and got his anchor stuck!

Matt and Kev jumped aboard and tried to free the anchor. This didn't work so we attached a tow rope and tried to pull the anchor free that way. This didn't work either so we cut his anchor rope, bouyed the end then towed him home to Swanage where we put him on the lifeboat mooring. No doubt he will soon be on his way and continuing with his journey.

We-eee-eeel....
You know you make me wanna (Shout!)
Kick my heels up and (Shout!)
Throw my hands up and (Shout!)
Throw my head back and (Shout!)
Come on now (Shout!)
(The Isley Brothers)

Plastic Fantastic

Many is the occasion that we are tasked to attend a vessel in difficulty and we end up towing them. This is not really our primary purpose, however, it is often easier to persuade people that they should accept our help if we save their pride and joy at the same time.

This is not always as easy as it looks though. Many new boats have very little in the way of substantial attachment points. In days gone by most yachts would have a 'Sampson'post on their foredeck to which a tow rope could be attached. Modern yachts tend to have 'Cleats' and these are often very small, so small in fact that they are essentially useless as a point of attachment.

In the photo here Steve is trying to figure out how on earth he can attach our stout tow rope to a cleat which wouldn't look out of place on a mirror dinghy. He managed, but stayed on board and regularly checked the security of the attachment.

A busy weekend

September is a great month. The vast majority of the tourists have packed up and gone home. Those people who are out tend to be locals making the last of the good weather. Not surprisingly they sometimes get caught out as the weather deteriorates and fresh breezes spring up without warning.

Both shouts this weekend were simple jobs which came to nothing really but were perfectly valid calls by the Coastguards. The first was a yacht aground at Old Harry. Fortunately he got himself off before we arrived. The ILB escorted him on his way to check that he was not taking water. The second was a windsurfer apparently in difficulties close to Old Harry. Several members of the public had called the Coastguard to alert them to his perceived plight. As it turned out he was was fine. The ILB escorted him home to Bournemouth too. So there you go. A busy September weekend with thankfully nothing nasty to report.

The cold north wind they call "La Bise"
Is swirling round about my knees,
Trees are crying leaves into the river;
I'm huddled in this french café
I never thought I'd see the day,
But winter's here and summer's really over,
And even the birds have packed up and gone,
They're flying south with their song,
And my love, she too has gone, she had to fly,
Out there, it's such a lonely sky,
(Chris de Burgh)

Unlucky

We were out last night, both boats, looking for something..........you see, someone had left a rope hanging over the cliff near Anvil point, tied securely at the top but attached to nothing at the bottom. Being as it was a climbing rope it was thought prudent for us to go and have a look and see if there was anything lying at the bottom or in the water near the bottom. Luckily it turned out there was nothing there. So we went home.

And then this morning we were called out again. Only it wasn't, as we expected, to go and look for the same missing something. Instead, to confound our expectations, it was to assist a yacht which had become attached to some fishing net. This sounds trivial but it was securely around their propeller and rudder so they had no steerage or motive power. Like good sorts they had tried to sort things out by themselves but despite going into the water armed with a knife, had failed to achieve any success. Thus they were well and truly 'Not Under Command' and in sore need of our assistance.

As we drew close we began to realise that they were no strangers to adversity on the high seas. From a distance their mast looked unusually short. Once I got aboard and chatted with the owner I got the full story. It turns out that on passage from Bermuda to the Azores they had been dismasted!, they had then made for the Azores under jury rig, made some repairs then continued to the UK. Last night crossing the channel from the Channel Islands to the south coast of England they had encountered further trouble............I only hope that bad things don't come in threes for them.