Missing yachtsmen - happy ending!

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[ QUOTE ]
It is thought their radio had lost power.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's good news that there was 'no news', and that the system worked for them.

However, I'd be interested to see how the lifeboat coxn's Return of Service reports the incident. 'Two lives saved'.....?

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

alec

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Great News !

Just proves that we should all take a few carrier pigeons with us on a cruise.


Did Lancaster's used to carry them ?
 

ggt9

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The account on the Harwich Lifeboat website perhaps gives a fairer picture of events:

>>>>
20' sailing yacht left Holland on the 12/6/2007 bound for Harwich, 24 hours over due. Search conducted by the ILB in Harwich Harbour and the ALB a search area from Harwich to 30 miles North East of the Harbour. Walton and Aldeburgh lifeboats requested to conduct a search to the north and south of Harwich, RAF helicopter and CG spotter plane joined the search. RAF helicopter located the yacht 42 miles north east of Harwich, ALB tasked to the yacht. Yacht's crew were exhausted and requested the ALB took them in tow to Harwich.
>>>>

Once reasonable concerns about an overdue vessel are reported to the coastguard, they are highly likely to pursue the matter. It looks as if they tried and failed to contact the vessel then went for a local search around the area where the yacht should have been and then widened the search area until they found it.

I'm sure there's much sensitivity to missing yachts around big shipping at night at the moment but this seems like a measured and successful operation with a good outcome to me.
 

Chris_Robb

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Just goes to show how misleading reports from newspapers are.

This report clearly shows there was significant concern especially over such a small craft.

I take back my comments!
 

graham

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Its difficult to know what to believe in the papers.

It sounds as if the main problem was caused by one of the guys giving his wife a completely different ETA to the other .
 

ggt9

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RNLI lives saved

[ QUOTE ]
However, I'd be interested to see how the lifeboat coxn's Return of Service reports the incident. 'Two lives saved'.....?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, while I'm in an apparently in a contrary mood this morning, I'd love to know where this comment comes from.

I've seen others make similar remarks and even had an instructor at an RYA sea school make the same joke repeatedly on a diesel engine course so perhaps it's something the RYA has decided to teach new sailors.

In the time I've been involved the RNLI, it's been made very clear to me that to the institution the phrase 'lives saved' really means exactly that and only that. Any claim to have saved lives in a service is thoroughly investigated and credit is only given for lives saved if in the opinion of the inspector those lives would certainly have been lost if it wasn't for the actions of the lifeboat.

You do not get lives saved for locating a boat, standing by a boat in difficulty, guiding or towing in a boat nor necessarily for taking people off a burning or sinking ship or pulling them from the water. It has to be really clear that someone would actually have died if the lifeboat didn't do what it did.

I don't think that RNLI fund raising publicity always helps in this respect as on occasions it seems to delight in blurring the distinction between numbers of services, rescues, lives saved and persons rescued or helped. And I'm sure the press and others reporting RNLI statistics frequently get confused as a result.

But unless the RNLI was very bad about this in the distant past, I've no idea why there seems to be an unfair and potentially damaging feeling among UK leisure boaters that the RNLI goes around claiming to save lives whenever it tows a boat in.
 

BlueSkyNick

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[ QUOTE ]
Its difficult to know what to believe in the papers.

It sounds as if the main problem was caused by one of the guys giving his wife a completely different ETA to the other .

[/ QUOTE ]
/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif do chaps do that then? you know, tell SWMBO you won't be long at the boat, then staying later. Wouldn't dream of it myself. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 

ggt9

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I've simply explained to my wife that time passes more quickly when you're having fun.

So she understands that if I disappear off "just to give the boat a run out for an hour" that I will indeed be on the boat for an hour but three hours will have elapsed at home when I get back. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 

LymingtonPugwash

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[ QUOTE ]
I've simply explained to my wife that time passes more quickly when you're having fun.

So she understands that if I disappear off "just to give the boat a run out for an hour" that I will indeed be on the boat for an hour but three hours will have elapsed at home when I get back. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
Do you think that perhaps Einstein was a sailor and came up his theory of relativity after one too many comments from his wife over similar problems to yourself? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

ggt9

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Yes. Apparently while waiting for the tide to come in, he had a lot of time on his hands...

einstein.jpg


Friday afternoon digression but at least I learnt something interesting
 
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