Missing yachtswoman in South west.

ukmctc said:
you make a lot of assumptions, based on what I don't know, inside info?, perhaps you have been this person in a similar situation and base your answeres on those experiences, anyway, lets just hope she and her boat are safe and well as I would hope for anyone in trouble at sea.
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I was only commenting on an implied suggestion that because the claim about not answering her phone was in the Daily Mail, it should probably be treated with suspicion. I cannot believe that the coastguard would not try calling her on her mobile if she is carrying one. Since they are still concerned for her safety, don't you agree it is safe to assume she is not answering? If they had dialed and she had answered from a very nice pub where she was having dinner, I am pretty sure this story would not have come about! :)
 
maby said:
I was only commenting on an implied suggestion that because the claim about not answering her phone was in the Daily Mail, it should probably be treated with suspicion. I cannot believe that the coastguard would not try calling her on her mobile if she is carrying one. Since they are still concerned for her safety, don't you agree it is safe to assume she is not answering? If they had dialed and she had answered from a very nice pub where she was having dinner, I am pretty sure this story would not have come about! :)
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Fair to assume the CG did try to call her on mobile and VHF - the fact remains is that they apparently have recieved no response. Hence the rescue operation in FULL swing.
I am only marginally familiar with her route's bolt-holes, of which I reckon there are VERY FEW, if any from leaving Newlyn til she'd get to St.Ives. Sennen? very open.

It seems very odd, and very worrying that the helicopters and RNLI have found no trace - it's not as if her route would have taken her far from the coastline.

Let's hope she's safe in The Scillies. Am I correct in thinking the forecast for the week is a worsening scenario leading to SEVERE STORM?
 
Robert Wilson said:
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I am only marginally familiar with her route's bolt-holes, of which I reckon there are VERY FEW, if any from leaving Newlyn til she'd get to St.Ives. Sennen? very open.

...
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I can think of better places to get into trouble - lots of rocks, not that much shelter. I don't think the weather round there was particularly bad this weekend, was it?
 
Mousehole

Haven't checked tide tables etc but from moon we must be around springs. Mousehole is a drying harbour although there is an anchorage off St Clements Isle. An assumption might be she stayed in Pz or Newlyn overnight then left for Mousehole and left as published at 1830. That shows Knowledge, tide heights and streams plus about an hour of usable light.
I,m hoping given wind direction that she's out in Irish sea and on her way back to Devon, sleep would be a consideration tho.
Keith
 
Falmouth Yacht Brokers

Brokers who sold boat. Have known these people for 15+ years good trustworthy and dependable with an excellent team of staff, they won't deliberately have sold a pup.
Keith
 
Quote from another news source although it's probably as unreliable as the daily mail

“But she failed to make contact with a relative, believed to be her husband, yesterday afternoon as expected and is now not answering her mobile, Falmouth Coastguard said.”

Lets just hope she is found safe and well.
 
.. and presumably the lady managed to get the boat from Penryn to Mousehole without any issues which would indicate a reasonable test of the boat and its systems.
 
maby said:
If you have a working VHF, I think it's irresponsible to not have it switched on. Even if you have a cavalier attitude towards your own safety, we all have a responsibility to support others in trouble at sea. Our VHF is always on while we are on the water, monitoring channel 16 or, if we are in a port area, flipping between the VTS and 16. We have assisted in search and rescue operations on several occasions.
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If you have a VHF, then the terms of your license REQUIRE you to monitor Channel 16 and (if DSC) accept DSC alerts.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
If you have a VHF, then the terms of your license REQUIRE you to monitor Channel 16 and (if DSC) accept DSC alerts.
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What, you think we are all bothered by licences too? And coastguard forms and EPIRBs and in-date flares .... I have quite enough regulation in normal life to want to join in when sailing. I am sure that this incident will be nothing to do with attitudes to rule-following jobsworths or the opposite. Bit of a red herring I suspect.
 
jimi said:
.. and presumably the lady managed to get the boat from Penryn to Mousehole without any issues which would indicate a reasonable test of the boat and its systems.
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That is (or, at least, seems to be true) - but it is only just over 30 miles, so a relatively easy day's sailing. Mousehole to Bideford is over a hundred miles - at least 20 hours sailing - hopefully she was not intending to try that single handed in one leg. The specification includes an autopilot, but you would have to be pretty foolhardy to risk sleeping on auto on a coastal hop along there, I would think. I'm surprised the alarm was not raised sooner - if I had tried a passage like that, my wife would have called at least once en-route.
 
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maby said:
I was only commenting on an implied suggestion that because the claim about not answering her phone was in the Daily Mail, it should probably be treated with suspicion. I cannot believe that the coastguard would not try calling her on her mobile if she is carrying one. Since they are still concerned for her safety, don't you agree it is safe to assume she is not answering? If they had dialed and she had answered from a very nice pub where she was having dinner, I am pretty sure this story would not have come about! :)
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Yes I didn't really engage brain when posting the link. I'm sure if the phone was answered there would of course be no search and rescue. The way it is phrased in the mail, though, is ambiguous- the phone might not be ringing (dead battery, say, going straight to voicemail) in which case it cannot be answered. If it is going unanswered, though, then it is ringing and not being picked up. That's more worrying, and that's why on first reading I thought it shouldn't be an unattributed claim.

Thinking about it, though, perhaps a ringing phone could be pinpointed by the mobile provider to some degree, so maybe it's all just in the wording of the article.

Anyway let's hope she's safe, if a bit uncertain of her position, somewhere off the Scillies or even Western approaches. It seems she has experience, even if from some time ago, and the boat at least looks in good nick for the journey.
 
Falmouth to Mousehole

I have been sailing out of Falmouth for approx 30 years and I don't think going to any of the Mounts Bay ports an easy days sail , get it wrong and it will bite your arse. I think Jimi is right, fair test of skipper and boat. Get the Lizard wrong and you will be sorry, I wonder if lookout at Lizard logged her passage.
Keith
 
Flapjack said:
Quote from another news source although it's probably as unreliable as the daily mail

“But she failed to make contact with a relative, believed to be her husband, yesterday afternoon as expected and is now not answering her mobile, Falmouth Coastguard said.”

Lets just hope she is found safe and well.
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PBO has reported that she rounded Land's End:
She then set sail from Mousehole - 'against advice' - and rounded Land's End for Bideford.
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so don't believe everything you read! I'm not sure where their journalist, Andrew Brook, got that from. Coastguard says she hasn't been seen since Mousehole...
 
RupertW said:
What, you think we are all bothered by licences too? And coastguard forms and EPIRBs and in-date flares .... I have quite enough regulation in normal life to want to join in when sailing. I am sure that this incident will be nothing to do with attitudes to rule-following jobsworths or the opposite. Bit of a red herring I suspect.
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Well, if you don't have both ship and personal license, it is up to you, but you risk a significant fine if you use the VHF. You can avoid a fine by getting a Ship's license (which is free) and not using the VHF except for emergency calls, but AFAIR it is the ship's license that requires you to keep a listening watch.

In any case, I regard it as just good seamanship; if I ever have a need to transmit a distress call, I'd be very upset if a nearby vessel that could have come to my aid did not do so because they couldn't be bothered with keeping a listening watch. Indeed, in such an event, if the MAIB investigated and found that lives had been lost because of a failure to monitor Channel 16, I think you could expect a tightening up of the licensing and enforcement regime - at a cost to all of us.

Responding to MAYDAY calls is a duty for ALL of us, not just the Coastguard.

Given that radio band-width is a finite commodity, which is managed for the benefit of all, I think that the present licensing regime for marine VHF is remarkably liberal. Certainly it is far more liberal than the corresponding licensing for most other forms of radio communication; the only one that is more liberal from the point of view of the user is the mobile phone; but the license requirements for the service providers are horrendous! And mobile phones don't work in a LOT of places we sail.
 
cagey said:
I have been sailing out of Falmouth for approx 30 years and I don't think going to any of the Mounts Bay ports an easy days sail , get it wrong and it will bite your arse. I think Jimi is right, fair test of skipper and boat. Get the Lizard wrong and you will be sorry, I wonder if lookout at Lizard logged her passage.
Keith
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Not having sailed Mounts Bay, I bow to your experience. However you look at it, it's a strange story. Surely she was not intending a 24 hour coastal passage single handed, was she? There's no mention of an intermediate stop-over, but the boat is not particularly well equipped and sleeping on autopilot along that passage seems pretty risky to me.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I think that the present licensing regime for marine VHF is remarkably liberal. Certainly it is far more liberal than the corresponding licensing for most other forms of radio communication; the only one that is more liberal from the point of view of the user is the mobile phone; but the license requirements for the service providers are horrendous!
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PMR446?

Pete
 
maby said:
Not having sailed Mounts Bay, I bow to your experience. However you look at it, it's a strange story. Surely she was not intending a 24 hour coastal passage single handed, was she? There's no mention of an intermediate stop-over, but the boat is not particularly well equipped and sleeping on autopilot along that passage seems pretty risky to me.
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Sadly I very much fear that your last sentence may be very pertinent given all the facts do far. Apparently Coastguard officers are conducting shoreline searches so it seems they may be thinking along the same lines.
 
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