splashman237
Member
We responded to a Mayday Sat Afternoon - guy had fallen out of kayak in rollers of Nairn East Beach -light winds but long low swell - he first raised a Pan Pan boats off Nairn then went silent for several mins with no position given then gave a mayday with no position, eventually coastguard got a posn from him 1Nm east of Nairn harbour. Three boats responded - Lady M ( Charlie Robertson) (LM 32?) , Osprey (Robert the Harbour master)and ourselves in Charlie of Nairn (jeanneau 32i) . The Casualty was in big rollers on the sandbar - Too shallow for Yacht it seemed , but Lady M went in to recover Kayaker going aground twice but getting off eventually. Harbour master attempted to go in to assist in a much smaller craft but had to abort becasue of the waves - Amazing seing as how the Skipper of Lady M Charlie Robertson is in his 80ies and was on his own - in really difficult heavy rollers. You could seen the yacht bottoming hard between the waves Lifeboats from Invergordon and Kessock responded and tranferred casualty before proceeding to Nairn - Well done Lady M and Charlie very brave. We stood by just offshore, - got some great photies of Casualty tranfer lifeboat etc. Casualty was lucky boats were out this time of year and that it was almost High tide - wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Shows how important giving position is early in comms with coastguard. Took about 15mins to get position from him. Guy was in water so difficult to operate handheld radio and obviously in distress cold etc - just couldn't get back aboard.
Well done!