News report

jimi

jimi

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In the news page
http://www.pbo.co.uk/news/534511/seasick-yacht-crew-rescued-after-steeri,ng-failure
it is reported:
"The yacht had radioed the coastguard for assistance, as all the crew were feeling unwell, they reported their position to be four miles out of Poole Harbour but the lifeboats found them to be four miles west of the Needles off the Isle of Wight."

my initial reaction was "What a bunch of incompetents!" then I thought about it and actually there is'nt that much difference between being 4 miles east of Poole and 4 miles west of the Needles. Is this a case of news reporting , whilst not factually inaccurate, putting spin on facts that will create an inaccurate impression and thus being slightly irresponsible?

Interested in thoughts?
 
My nephew drowned in Greece many years ago. It was his own fault, he was snorkelling without fins and it seems he went too deep for too long and couldn't get back to the surface fast enough. My brother (his father) was watching from the beach at the time and noticed a speedboat that would pass close to his son's area. As it happened the boat passed, his son came up and went down again and never came back up. After the UK inquest a Daily Mail reporter asked my brother for a comment, he declined. The reporter said that if my brother didn't comment they'd print what they liked. The next day page 3 in the DM had a headline of "British Tourist Killed By Speedboat" and the only fact they got right was my nephew's name.


Yes of course the news media is interested in sensationalising stories. "Sensible crew of a yacht rescued from exactly where they said they were" isn't half as interesting as "bunch of incompetent sailors put the lives of our heroic RNLI at risk by not knowing where they are".
 
jimi said:
In the news page
http://www.pbo.co.uk/news/534511/seasick-yacht-crew-rescued-after-steeri,ng-failure
it is reported:
"The yacht had radioed the coastguard for assistance, as all the crew were feeling unwell, they reported their position to be four miles out of Poole Harbour but the lifeboats found them to be four miles west of the Needles off the Isle of Wight."

my initial reaction was "What a bunch of incompetents!" then I thought about it and actually there is'nt that much difference between being 4 miles east of Poole and 4 miles west of the Needles. Is this a case of news reporting , whilst not factually inaccurate, putting spin on facts that will create an inaccurate impression and thus being slightly irresponsible?

Interested in thoughts?
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same, was going to look at a chart as I thought the positions were the same. Appears to be sensible crew. Problem, anchored, told someone what had happened, and where they where. Could have stayed where they were long enough to get through sea sickness, then fix boat and go home. Not much of a story there. Did think it was RNLI who implied the error in position. But may be just how crew reported things.
 
Possibly in the cockpit using a command mike or a handheld vhf. Just look around and give a rough position while trying to attend to the emergency. Could be a better response than hiding down below and reading off a gps position to three decimal places. Rough position gives the lifeboat somewhere to point straight away and can be refined later by gps and/or vhf direction finding.


But I suppose RNLI would possibly have launched from Yarmouth first if they had an accurate position??
 
Haven't got tidal stream atlas to hand but reading the report it says that by the time Poole lifeboat was there, recovering the boat back to Poole would have been difficult suggesting to me that the tide was carrying them East. So they could well have been about 4 miles east of Poole when they sent the message (and which bit of Poole ? Harbour ent, fairway??

Looks like sensationalist reporting.
 
Sensationalist indeed. Put the boot on the other foot and it could easily be "Bumbling RNLI needed 3 lifeboats, 15 crew and 2 ports of refuge to tow yacht anchored off the Isle of Wight in broad daylight shocker". FWIW I think they do a great job and it's very reassuring to know that they are there, but I can't be the only skipper who, if one day I needed them, might hesitate or perhaps send a call later than I should have because of the inevitable poorly written, sensationalist **** such as this?

The only time I have ever called the CG was to advise them of a situation...we'd got caught out in 30+ knots and big seas off the Owers. One crew member was severely sick, we'd not been making much headway so we were motorsailing. We lost the engine at the worst moment, so I called to advise of our situation, told them we were back to sailing, but if we lost the rig in the worsening conditions we would be NUC and our HH VHF probably didn't have the range to call them. As soon as I confirmed that I needed no assistance, we were CG66 registered and had a lot of safety gear on board they were great...very reassuring and just asked us to call in our position every hour. After a few hours of this and 24 hours awake, I made a silly tired error and called in the position of the cursor on the plotter, not my position. They asked me to check , and I again just read the numbers. I knew exactly where I was, I'd just made a simple error...would I too have been portrayed as some incompetent who had no idea about my position had we lost the rig and I'd needed assistance?
 
Reading the report and looking at their own [RNLI's] photograph, makes me wonder just what the observation qualities of the crew are. Sea conditions don't look too bad and certainly not "rough", as reported "5-6", and how does the 4 miles suddenly turn into a 9 mile slog. The lie of the anchor seems to suggest that indeed the tide was running to the East, however. Chain ferry to Hurst is also 16+miles so someone also needs to invest in a pair of dividers.
Handling the truth a little carelessly = I would suggest. I am sure that the RNLI err on the side of themselves as heros, but surely PBO should also check the details before printing.
 
Needles is 14 miles from the harbour entrance. http://www.rallysail.co.uk/distances.htm

However will be less than that from the outer buoys maybe 12 miles????? (No chart at home) so the RNLI are criticising the skipper because by the time they got to him he was maybe 4 miles downwind and downtide of where he first said he was.

I fully respect the heroism and professionalism of the crews but why the hell didn't they anticipate that the boat would drift downtide/ downwind from first contact and launch Yarmouth in the first place. Even if soundly anchored, towing 12 miles to hurst would be better than 4 to Poole.

This raises more serious questions about the RNLI for criticising the yachtsman than it does about the yachtsman. -
 
I scratched my car on Saturday. Squeezing it into the last space on a private office car park, gave it a tiny scratch on the front. It was the last space because it had a concrete thingy one side and a post the other and everyone else quite sensibly had chosen the easier spaces. First scratch on a car twelve months old. Grrr!

Incompetent motorist hits wall in broad daylight
An onlooker (who didn't want to give his name) commented "The wall was obvious and the space was just too small. He got closer and closer. Anyone could see he was going to hit it. Clearly he didn't know how to use his steering or his brakes. If there had been innocent children in the way they could have been maimed for life or crushed to death and their mothers put in danger trying to save them. Driving is just so dangerous and only wealthy incompetents have cars. I didn't see any safety equipment on board. I don't think guys of nearly sixty should be allowed to drive without annual tests . . ."
 
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