Mayday Sunsail 4035 (4305?) on Sunday.

mickywillis

mickywillis

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How did the injured crewman fare after the incident?
Any more information regarding the accident?
I was in Langstone Harbour at the time and heard the Mayday call (but not a DSC call??)
The crew appeared to be all Russian only speaking, so it was a bit difficult to understand what was going on ( the Mayday caller couldn't give any ideas of their location)

Must applaud the young lady of the CG who coordinated the rescue, very calm, proficient and articulate with her responses- top job!! What would we do without the CG if the Government decides to axe this wonderful service??
And a round of applause for the other vessels/skippers who offered assistance and offers of help (even to the point of offering a Russian translator!) to help the crew during the event.
Puts your faith back into humanity eh?

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/lo...injured-crewman-from-stricken-yacht-1-4320032
 
Yes I heard this, and got the DSC alert, the lady who is a regular Solent CG watch officer has overseen other casualty working and I agree, she is very professional and very much in command, at one point she even firmly announced "selonce mayday" when one of the attending lifeboats called on 16.

As for the injured Russci, I have no idea. I would though like to think he must have been the English speaker of the crew, otherwise did Sunsail really charter a boat to a group who did not speak English??? Is this further evidence of acceptance of credit card qualifications? In other words the charterer saying "who cares, we got the money!"
 
galadriel said:
As for the injured Russci, I have no idea. I would though like to think he must have been the English speaker of the crew, otherwise did Sunsail really charter a boat to a group who did not speak English??? Is this further evidence of acceptance of credit card qualifications? In other words the charterer saying "who cares, we got the money!"
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Seriously? You think that people who can't speak English aren't qualified to sail?
 
bbg said:
Seriously? You think that people who can't speak English aren't qualified to sail?
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Not at all, what I am saying is if they dont speak English, how did SS be able to assess anything about them. Or was it a case of the credit card has cleared, they must be OK. That is unless SS have a multi lingual staff, I suppose thats possible. Or they have no requirement for any sailing knowledge.
 
galadriel said:
As for the injured Russci, I have no idea. I would though like to think he must have been the English speaker of the crew, otherwise did Sunsail really charter a boat to a group who did not speak English??? Is this further evidence of acceptance of credit card qualifications? In other words the charterer saying "who cares, we got the money!"
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What a racist!
 
galadriel said:
Not at all, what I am saying is if they dont speak English, how did SS be able to assess anything about them. Or was it a case of the credit card has cleared, they must be OK. That is unless SS have a multi lingual staff, I suppose thats possible. Or they have no requirement for any sailing knowledge.
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Sunsail have offices and thus reps in a few countries who can do their checks on booking.
 
From the OP's link: 'The Russian crew reported that they had struck a navigational marker'

How unfortunate. you'd like to think hazards like that would be well charted. :eek:

mickywillis said:
the Mayday caller couldn't give any ideas of their location
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In the context of the above that beggars belief.
 
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haydude said:
What a racist!
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How on earth is that racist? :confused: It' a simple matter of communication. If you can't talk to them how can you possibly know if they are competent to sail the boat, brief them or do a handover? I doubt the poster would expect to walk into a Russian charterer's office and charter a vessel from them unless they were able to communicate either.
 
bitbaltic said:
From the OP's link: 'The Russian crew reported that they had struck a navigational marker'

How unfortunate. you'd like to think hazards like that would be well charted. :eek:



In the context of the above that beggars belief.
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maybe the chart wasnt in Russian either.:rolleyes:
 
haydude said:
What a racist!
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Speaking the language has nothing to do with race.

But we can go and hire cars in different countries without knowing the language - so other than provdiing evidence of their yachting capability language isn't a total barrier.
 
fireball said:
Speaking the language has nothing to do with race.

But we can go and hire cars in different countries without knowing the language - so other than provdiing evidence of their yachting capability language isn't a total barrier.
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Having hired a car in Greece, wrong language you can grunt your way around, wrong alphabet can be a handicap.
As always a physics degree helps, at one point I was looking for roadsigns to 'some place ending in phase-density-angle' or something like that.
We found a nice bar there.
 
I was in Cowes Friday night and Sunsail must have had about 20 boats crewed by eastern europeans with a scatetering of English speakers among them. The boat handleing was vastly superior to what I have seen from other Sunsail charter groups.
 
With Regard To Russian Charterers

I chartered a nearly new Bavaria 45 Cruiser this summer. She had a big scrape down the side of the port bow which was acknowledged on the handover form. The scrape came from a Russian charter crew on her first charter when she was brand new earlier in the season. When the yacht returned and the charter company queried how the scrape got there, they denied all knowledge of it. Later they started to claim it was just minor damage, routine stuff. They then got a bit verbal with the charter company when they were told that they would only get the balance on the deposit back after the scrape was repaired. I wonder if this was the same lot!
 
mickywillis said:
I was in Langstone Harbour at the time and heard the Mayday call (but not a DSC call??)
The crew appeared to be all Russian only speaking, so it was a bit difficult to understand what was going on ( the Mayday caller couldn't give any ideas of their location)
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I was approaching Hayling Bay, and got the DSC alert - my cheap plotter showed the location, so I guess CG were double-checking.

I've got my MMSI on labels above *both* radio handsets so that we can do "... MMSI ending <last four digits>..." after DSC, if required, so CG can verify.

(Position Send tested on a quiet winter evening, safely tucked up in Chi Marina after arial replacement and a polite request on 67 - I recommend it to the house.)
 
grumpy_o_g said:
How on earth is that racist? :confused: It' a simple matter of communication. If you can't talk to them how can you possibly know if they are competent to sail the boat, brief them or do a handover? I doubt the poster would expect to walk into a Russian charterer's office and charter a vessel from them unless they were able to communicate either.
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I wonder how many people on this forum have chartered in Greece, Turkey, The Baltic etc etc without speaking the local language?
 
Rigger Mortice said:
I wonder how many people on this forum have chartered in Greece, Turkey, The Baltic etc etc without speaking the local language?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Marine_Communication_Phrases

http://www.allhandsondeck.com.au/Standard Marine Communications IMO.pdf

http://www.martel.pro

Yes, I sometimes work with with non-English-as-a-first-language-speakers who are culturally reluctant to come out and say "No, I can't guarantee that I will do what I've said yes to".

Of course, my schoolboy French doesn't cover "Is this 2-stroke oil fully synthetic, suitable for injection-mix rather than pre-mix" or "Please Mr Harbourmaster, can you tell us where we can get some old tyres because our fenders are starting to pop, now that the storm is at its height"
 
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