Bembridge RNLI’s All Weather Lifeboat launched to assist a 20ft sailing boat that was in difficulty without an engine in the middle of the shipping channel shortly after midnight.
Solent Coastguard requested the launch of the lifeboat from Lane End at 00:20 this morning (Thursday) to assist the sailing boat with 2 crew onboard, which was located to the east of North Sturbridge buoy without power and making no progress under sail.
The urgency was that there was a 200m car carrier – the Glovis Superior – travelling at 16 knots outbound from Southampton.
Conditions were pretty benign at NE Force 3 so it didn’t take long for the volunteer lifeboat crew to reach the casualty vessel and identify them to the Glovis Superior.
After a dynamic risk assessment and given that her engine was not working, they were not making any progress under sail and they did not have a VHF radio, it was decided to tow her into Portsmouth.
To assist the 2 crew onboard connect the tow, 1 of Bembridge Lifeboat’s crew was transferred to the sailing yacht.
Having berthed the yacht safely in Gosport Marina, the relief lifeboat ‘Peter and Lesley-Jane Nicholson’ returned to Bembridge and was recovered by 02:15.
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It’s getting worse with the plebs out there!!!
A failed engine could happen to anyone. The AA recovery service for cars would be out of business if that was not the case so why expect any difference for boat engines?. and no one can magic up a breeze when there is none.
If it was dark and without radio, how was the alarm raised? If by mobile phone, having no VHF is irrelevant.
The significance of having no vhf radio was that they had no way of directly communicating with the car carrier to alert them to the situation. A small sailing yacht is unlikely to be clearly displayed on the large ship’s radar and would be invisible to its radar once very close due to the angle of the radar beam being blocked by the front section of the car carrier. Chances are that the yacht was displaying the correct navigation lights but the car carrier would have been constrained by its draft to sticking to the deep channel and also would not have been able to stop in time, even if it attempted to do.
Going afloat with a Marine radio is just stupid