A Mayday, really?

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jonjo

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I overheard the Solent CG side of the conversation relating to a mayday today.

My first thought was given the settled weather it must be fire onboard, water ingress or a medical emergency.
Next given the vague details I thought perhaps a school holiday VHF prank, but no the dialogue continued.

Eventually Solent CG confirmed a 34ft sailing yacht with engine failure a few miles off Ventnor. Shaking my head I continued on to Portsmouth in a useful breeze and assumed there was a subtext that explained the serverity of the distress. But no, that was it.

http://www.bembridgelifeboat.org.uk/news/april-2016

I wish the Solent CG operatives had the maritime common sense to tell people not to use the RNLI as a subscription-free alternative to Seastart.
 
jonjo5 said:
I overheard the Solent CG side of the conversation relating to a mayday today.

My first thought was given the settled weather it must be fire onboard, water ingress or a medical emergency.
Next given the vague details I thought perhaps a school holiday VHF prank, but no the dialogue continued.

Eventually Solent CG confirmed a 34ft sailing yacht with engine failure a few miles off Ventnor. Shaking my head I continued on to Portsmouth in a useful breeze and assumed there was a subtext that explained the serverity of the distress. But no, that was it.

http://www.bembridgelifeboat.org.uk/news/april-2016

I wish the Solent CG operatives had the maritime common sense to tell people not to use the RNLI as a subscription-free alternative to Seastart.
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So what should they have done instead? Assuming too deep to anchor. No wind. Drifting in to a shipping channel?

And why not leave it to the RNLI themselves to criticize them. They are probably in possession of more of the facts than you are.

My mate is on a mountain rescue team up here in Scotland. He has rescued people from the West Highland Way who were in sight of the car park. My attempts to get him to slag the rescuees off always fails. He doesn't care. I think if they are real numpties a donation to the Christmas party fund is suggested! Assuming that people dont do it on purpose everyone has a different idea of an emergency.

The alternative is regulating who can go sailing, climbing, walking etc etc.
 
I suppose it didn't really warrant a Mayday but any contact with the coastguard would have probably ended up with the same result - a yacht that could have drifted into shipping lanes with no engine and no wind in an area where three lives were lost not many years ago was at risk and a hazard. Perhaps they should have had Seastart but instead it was a little low risk call out for the lifeboat which was probably slightly more interesting than an exercise. No harm done.
 
roblpm said:
So what should they have done instead? Assuming too deep to anchor. No wind. Drifting in to a shipping channel?
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There is no shipping channel and there was wind, just not enough to get that crew where they wanted to go at their desired speed.

roblpm said:
And why not leave it to the RNLI themselves to criticize them.
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Because the RNLI are not culturally predisposed to do this whatever the merits of the case.

roblpm said:
The alternative is regulating who can go sailing, climbing, walking etc etc.
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Exactly, such frivolous use of declaring a Mayday distress will clock up the statistics that will allow the policticians to justify imposing the regulation curse on us all.
 
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l'escargot said:
I suppose it didn't really warrant a Mayday but any contact with the coastguard would have probably ended up with the same result - a yacht that could have drifted into shipping lanes with no engine and no wind in an area where three lives were lost not many years ago was at risk and a hazard. Perhaps they should have had Seastart but instead it was a little low risk call out for the lifeboat which was probably slightly more interesting than an exercise. No harm done.
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Those lives were lost after dark in very a different situation. With Solent CG on the case there were not going to be run down and anyhow a fresh breeze arrived an hour after that Mayday so the said yacht could have romped home in any direction with a Seatstart pickup within the Solent.

The Bembridge lifeboat had a scheduled training exercise late afternoon presumably when the volunteer crew has finished work.
 
l'escargot said:
I suppose it didn't really warrant a Mayday but any contact with the coastguard would have probably ended up with the same result
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Not the same result, midway through the Mayday conversation an Indian merchant mariner pro offered to up anchor to go and help. The notion of a merchant ship hauling anchor to intervene with such a low grade leisure storm in a teacup is farcical, I assume maritime law or company orders mandated that the merchant ship anchored near Nab responded to the Mayday.
 
jonjo5 said:
There is no shipping channel and there was wind, just not enough to get that crew where they wanted to go at their desired speed.


Because the RNLI are culturally predisposed to do this whatever the merits of the case.


Exactly, such frivolous use of declaring a Mayday distress will clock up the statistics that will allow the policticians to justify imposing the regulation curse on us all.
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Ok I am wrong and you know better.
 
jonjo5 said:
Those lives were lost after dark in very a different situation. With Solent CG on the case there were not going to be run down and anyhow a fresh breeze arrived an hour after that Mayday so the said yacht could have romped home in any direction with a Seatstart pickup within the Solent.

The Bembridge lifeboat had a scheduled training exercise late afternoon presumably when the volunteer crew has finished work.
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Perhaps they should have contacted you, you could have told them to hang on as the wind was coming... Yes, Solent CG were on the case -are you criticising how they decided to deal with it? It looks to me that they thought their actions at the time were more appropriate than the ones you are proposing with hindsight sat in front of your computer screen...
 
jonjo5 said:
Exactly, such frivolous use of declaring a Mayday distress will clock up the statistics that will allow the policticians to justify imposing the regulation curse on us all.
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Which would cause rejoicing in RNLI HQ, as they'd then be able to get involved in "educating" us, at our expense.
 
jonjo5 said:
Not the same result, midway through the Mayday conversation an Indian merchant mariner pro offered to up anchor to go and help. The notion of a merchant ship hauling anchor to intervene with such a low grade leisure storm in a teacup is farcical, I assume maritime law or company orders mandated that the merchant ship anchored near Nab responded to the Mayday.
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Yes it would be the same result. The CG were coordinating once it was a Mayday and I am sure they declined the offer of help in favour of tasking the lifeboat. If it hadn't been a mayday, the CG would still have despatched a lifeboat...
 
l'escargot said:
you are proposing with hindsight sat in front of your computer screen...
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Solent Coastguard were only sat in front of a computer screen too, in Fareham.

Anyway, even if we allow that the Coastguard feel duty bound to take any declared Mayday deadly seriously, would anyone really agree that the yacht's crew were justified in claiming a "grave and imminent danger to life"? Not a "marginally forseeable possibility of some form of risk", but grave, imminent, and life-threatening?

By all means put out a general call to see if anyone nearby can offer a tow.

Pete
 
"Anyway, even if we allow that the Coastguard feel duty bound to take any declared Mayday deadly seriously"

We shouldn't, they don't.

A Mayday call from giggling teenagers is treated with suspicion. Rather than ask RNLI to scramble, they might ask a yottie in the vicinity to take a lookabout and report back.
 
I suspect it wasn't technically a mayday but that a call to the cg advising them of the situation would have had the same result so find it difficult to care! I got irretrievably entangled on a pot a year ago and called Thames CG to advise them of our situation. F4, anchored on the edge of a sand bank fiddling with boat hooks etc..., they offered to send the lifeboat. . We said "yes,please!" Same result, it's the CG that make the call to launch not the RNLI, I asked the crew if they minded, "No, we love it . It's often a race to try and get on the launch." was the response.
 
jonjo5 said:
I wish the Solent CG operatives had the maritime common sense to tell people not to use the RNLI as a subscription-free alternative to Seastart.
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What you recommend has a certain logic to it, but it does have overtones of the infamous Titanic distress call:

Titanic: "Come at once. We have struck a berg. It's a CQD, old man."

Carpathia: "Shall I tell my captain? Do you require assistance?"
​

If the captain/skipper declares a mayday, it's a mayday, end of story. Other than that everything else you say makes total sense.

And in the case of "Yacht Tulip" ...well quite!
 
We had a similar situation last year where we had engine failure on our rib coming towards Calshot heading from Cowes back up Southampton water. we were initially out of the shipping channel but drifting quickly in its direction.

First call was to sea start who dispatched assistance and second call was to coast guard only to inform them of our position and situation and that we did not need their assistance at that time but to make them aware. i was unable to raise VTS on the VHF and requested that solent coastguard relay our position and information as we had by that time drifted into the main channel at just about the tightest point.

Just before seastart arrived a large gas carrier was coming down the channel heading out of southampton and it was clear that despite the worsening conditions, they had been informed and made early and obvious actions to avoid us for which we were very grateful....

Coastguard were very good all communications, as were national coast watch who had visuals on us for much of the time from their Calshot base.
 
z1ppy said:
...Just before seastart arrived a large gas carrier was coming down the channel heading out of southampton and it was clear that despite the worsening conditions, they had been informed and made early and obvious actions to avoid us for which we were very grateful....

Coastguard were very good all communications, as were national coast watch who had visuals on us for much of the time from their Calshot base.
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Which demonstrates the sense of involving the CG early on - they can see events developing that others often can't and take steps to prevent the situation worsening whilst it is sorted out...
 
l'escargot said:
Which demonstrates the sense of involving the CG early on - they can see events developing that others often can't and take steps to prevent the situation worsening whilst it is sorted out...
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absolutely, and that was my thinking at the time. we were not in grave of imminent danger hence would not have consider our situation a Mayday call but common sense suggested that a "for information" call to CG was the right thing for us.
 
l'escargot said:
Which demonstrates the sense of involving the CG early on - they can see events developing that others often can't and take steps to prevent the situation worsening whilst it is sorted out...
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Who argued otherwise? It's the Mayday status that's being questioned.
 
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