Woodentop
Well-Known Member
It is Thursday 12 May, about 0600 GMT. We are about 15 miles north of Cape Finesterre, 25 miles NW of La Corunna. The Biscay crossing has been a dream with winds F6 aft of the beam and going like a greased weasel, though the wind is now fading out.
The boat is a brand new 40 foot sloop. Crew is two YM instructors plus the owner, we are all fit men in our late fourties. The autopilot is steering so we have one on watch, one on standby(dozing) and one asleep.
I hear a strange call on the radio (radio set to Ch 16, cockpit speaker on, volume high, as is my normal practice). Is it a Mayday ? It is a French voice. He calls again. I move below to hear better and prepare to answer. He calls again. Something like "Medemedemede ...motuer en panne..".
I am confused. Is this a Mayday call? Who is he? Where is he? What is the problem?
I call my mate from his bunk to listen.
After the fifth call in fifteen minutes I decide we are listening to a Mayday.
It is not clear at all. No position has been given.
My French is pure schoolboy standard and I am not sure what I heard.
We respond, my mate speaks better French but even he has problems. We call and they answer, after a couple of goes we finally extract a position from them. They speak too fast for us to understand but we get a lat/long.
It is 12 miles south of us.
I fire up the brand new Yanmar with only 12 hours on the gauge, "red-line it" and set a course. The owner wakes up for his cornflakes and we explain what is happening.
"They called Mayday. It is the Law. We go. Now. No question."
They are 90 minutes away and no one else has responded so we go.
Our assesment - from limited information and poor linguistics is that they have lost power and are in danger of being swept onto the rocks by the tide. Their position is close into shore on the "Costa del Muerte" (Coast of Death as the Spanish call it).
We arrive at the position and can only see 4 Spanish fishing boats. We seek an update from the boat. Now we learn it is a 12 metre yacht called Mahe and it is now 6 miles east of us. We motor on.
Finally we catch up with the yacht sailing very slowly/drifting past the shoals at Isla Sisargas. A British yacth motors south past it.
We tow it into La Corunna.
Significant Points.
No one answered the Mayday. If you call Mayday take a deep breathe and say it slowly and clearly. The rushed French m´aidez was not the slow British Maaaaydaaay nor the Spanish Meeedeee and no one bothered, except me.
We SAW eight other vessels that would have been in range and two coast radio stations (La Corrunna and Finnisterre Traffic) but none of them responded.
No position was given in the initial call. In a Mayday call there are only 3 important things to remember. Your position, your position and your position. Because the initial call did not include a position we did not recognise it as a mayday.
Speak slowly. I know that most of the world does not speak English but our forefathers got round that by speaking clearly and loudly. Giving your position as "Four Zero degrees" instead of "fourty degrees" is better. Even amongst English natives we can confuse thirteen with thirty.
With our limited schoolboy French and his thick Breton accent we needed the simple clear speech.
Was it really a Mayday ? A 12 metre yacht with sails and an anchor ? Is failure of the secondary propulsion system grounds for concern ?
In this case they were 12 day out of the Canaries, hard on the wind. They had many equipment failures and diesel algae. It was not the skipper that sent mayady but one of his crew. The skipper had "lost the plot".
It was a mayday because they thought it was, at the time of calling they were in risk of drifting with the tide onto the cliff base with no wind to sail to.
We towed them in. With no pre-agreed contract. The skipper - when he got his act together- was bricking himself about salvage claims. We told him in the harbour we wanted a belly full of beer and dinner. The claim was paid in full and we sang Jacque Brel´s songs through the back streets of La Corunna that following early morning on our way home.
The incident is now a formal complaint from myself to the Spanish authorities and the Salvamento Maritimo for failing to keep a proper radio watch. I hope to update you in due course.
Just another little tale of a day at sea. Another thing to learn from.
The boat is a brand new 40 foot sloop. Crew is two YM instructors plus the owner, we are all fit men in our late fourties. The autopilot is steering so we have one on watch, one on standby(dozing) and one asleep.
I hear a strange call on the radio (radio set to Ch 16, cockpit speaker on, volume high, as is my normal practice). Is it a Mayday ? It is a French voice. He calls again. I move below to hear better and prepare to answer. He calls again. Something like "Medemedemede ...motuer en panne..".
I am confused. Is this a Mayday call? Who is he? Where is he? What is the problem?
I call my mate from his bunk to listen.
After the fifth call in fifteen minutes I decide we are listening to a Mayday.
It is not clear at all. No position has been given.
My French is pure schoolboy standard and I am not sure what I heard.
We respond, my mate speaks better French but even he has problems. We call and they answer, after a couple of goes we finally extract a position from them. They speak too fast for us to understand but we get a lat/long.
It is 12 miles south of us.
I fire up the brand new Yanmar with only 12 hours on the gauge, "red-line it" and set a course. The owner wakes up for his cornflakes and we explain what is happening.
"They called Mayday. It is the Law. We go. Now. No question."
They are 90 minutes away and no one else has responded so we go.
Our assesment - from limited information and poor linguistics is that they have lost power and are in danger of being swept onto the rocks by the tide. Their position is close into shore on the "Costa del Muerte" (Coast of Death as the Spanish call it).
We arrive at the position and can only see 4 Spanish fishing boats. We seek an update from the boat. Now we learn it is a 12 metre yacht called Mahe and it is now 6 miles east of us. We motor on.
Finally we catch up with the yacht sailing very slowly/drifting past the shoals at Isla Sisargas. A British yacth motors south past it.
We tow it into La Corunna.
Significant Points.
No one answered the Mayday. If you call Mayday take a deep breathe and say it slowly and clearly. The rushed French m´aidez was not the slow British Maaaaydaaay nor the Spanish Meeedeee and no one bothered, except me.
We SAW eight other vessels that would have been in range and two coast radio stations (La Corrunna and Finnisterre Traffic) but none of them responded.
No position was given in the initial call. In a Mayday call there are only 3 important things to remember. Your position, your position and your position. Because the initial call did not include a position we did not recognise it as a mayday.
Speak slowly. I know that most of the world does not speak English but our forefathers got round that by speaking clearly and loudly. Giving your position as "Four Zero degrees" instead of "fourty degrees" is better. Even amongst English natives we can confuse thirteen with thirty.
With our limited schoolboy French and his thick Breton accent we needed the simple clear speech.
Was it really a Mayday ? A 12 metre yacht with sails and an anchor ? Is failure of the secondary propulsion system grounds for concern ?
In this case they were 12 day out of the Canaries, hard on the wind. They had many equipment failures and diesel algae. It was not the skipper that sent mayady but one of his crew. The skipper had "lost the plot".
It was a mayday because they thought it was, at the time of calling they were in risk of drifting with the tide onto the cliff base with no wind to sail to.
We towed them in. With no pre-agreed contract. The skipper - when he got his act together- was bricking himself about salvage claims. We told him in the harbour we wanted a belly full of beer and dinner. The claim was paid in full and we sang Jacque Brel´s songs through the back streets of La Corunna that following early morning on our way home.
The incident is now a formal complaint from myself to the Spanish authorities and the Salvamento Maritimo for failing to keep a proper radio watch. I hope to update you in due course.
Just another little tale of a day at sea. Another thing to learn from.
