Pan-Pan: What would you have done?

[Guest]

A little Easter conundrum.

As we were sailing in the Thames estuary on Good Friday, we heard a Pan-Pan from a yacht. It reported having gone aground on the Margate sands, about 5 miles north of the Kent coast. They had strayed out of the Gore Channel, while travelling towards Ramsgate. The yacht was a Fisher 30, a strong motor-sailor. There were two adults and two children aboard. Weather: NNE 3-4, sea slight, fair, good visibility. Forecast was similar. The yacht was on the leeward (protected ) side of the sands. Time, late morning, shortly after low tide.

a) Should the yacht have made a Pan-Pan call?

b)Dover CG response was to call out Margate lifeboat. Do you think that was the appropriate decision?

c)The skipper was happy to accept this help, for which he had not asked. Should he have declined?

d)Two other yachts were approximately one mile from the casualty. Both were deeper draft than the Fisher. One decided that it could not help, and continued on its way. The other contacted Dover CG and was asked to stand by. It was released after the lifeboat reached the casualty. What would you have done?

 

[Guest]

It would seem from the info you have provided thet the vessel would have floated off of the sands by itself before too long. As the yacht was on the sheltered side of the sands it should not have been damaged but...

- The Margate sands are not a nice place to run aground.

- The sands could have been exposed at that time or maybe just covered. Waves from the North East could have been breaking on the sands and been very short and steep around the vessel with its keel banging on the hard bottom.

- Certainly a radio call to the Coastguard was the correct action as soon as the vessel knew it was stuck.

- Lives are lost by delaying making emergency calls, the RNLI tell us they would far rather return to port without being needed than be called out too late.

- The situation would probably have righted itself but the vessel could have been holed, the crew could have been young or inexperienced, and survival time in the water in April is counted in minutes on the fingers of one hand.

- I am not advocating calling out for the Lifeboat when not necessary but things could have gone wrong very quickly.

- If I had been in the area at the time I could have offered to stand by and perhaps attempt a tow. But it is easy for me coz I have a powerful Motor Cruiser with a shallow draft.

No lives were lost, lessons learned ( hopefully ), perhaps injured pride.

Lastly and most important. I cruise that route regularly. Do not be a slave to the GPS between East Last and Longnose. There is definately something funny about the GPS in this area, South Margate buoy appears to be in the wrong place. Or maybe some of the buoys have moved and nobody has told us. This has been alluded to in the boating press before.

Happy Sailing.

Dave S

 

[Guest]

Andrew, I heard Thames CG respond to the Pan Pan but didn't hear any of the calls from the casualty.

In the scenario that you give above the obvious solution is to chuck the hook over the side and wait for the rising tide to relieve your embarrassment. However, reality is two adult, one of whom will be the mother, and two children.

I would not want to be a skipper in that position for the crews immediate reaction will be of panic....and it is panic that helps us all to make or compound our mistakes.

Interestingly, at the same time, the Netherlands CG put out a gale warning for a SW 7 on the Navtex. (The Dutch and Belgiums give gale warnings at Force 7, The UK at F 8.)

Given their circumstances they did the right thing. They were inexperienced or they wouldn't have run aground anyway and the crews safety must be paramount. Also, can you imagine getting the family to go sailing again after such abysmal weather, cold and rain and running aground!!!

For the skipper it was either Pan Pan or swim ashore for safety.

As for being asked to stand by, we certainly would tho we would advise the skipper to drop the hook and put the kettle on whilst the tide returned.

 

[Guest]

It would be a brave CG operator

these days who would not send a lifeboat.

Best case I heard some years ago was one Sunday morning ( about 0300 ), glassy calm, flood tide. 20 foot trailer sailor sailor had run out of fuel for his outboard. Called the local harbour control on VHF , could they get the local CG ( volunteer operation out here) to come out and give him a tow?

5 minutes later " I've spoken to CG, they say you are in no danger what so ever, if the water gets shallow drop your anchor, they shall be out after breakfast....'

'Oh OK...'

So the Fisher skipper put the wheels in motion, maybe through inexperience, maybe to escape the wrath of his wife, but then I guess things must take their course.

 

[Guest]

Re: Sorry itchy finger again. nm

nm

 

[Guest]

If I had been the skipper with my family as crew I would not have put out a Pan Pan. From the description, the flood tide was likely to get me going quicker than the lifeboat and there was no immediate danger to the boat or crew - discomfort, possibly, a blazing row almost certainly. However, I have been there, done that, and know the scenario.

In view of the Dutch forecast, if I had been aware of it, I might have put in a routine call to the Coatguard to get their view of the time scale of the developing gale, at the same time alerting them to my situation but stressing that I needed no assistance at that stage.

However, I would not criticise the skipper in this situation. Although he was not in immediate danger and did not require immediate assistance, he was not fully in control of a situation which might have deteriorated. This is what the Pan Pan call is for. He could have refused the offer of help, but I am sure he took his domestic circumstances into account.

The Coastguard need not have offered the Lifeboat, but again, in those conditions, they had nothing else to do, so they might as well have taken advantage of a training opportunity.

 

[Guest]

Before I get too Blimpish, I should tell a tale against myself

August Bank Holiday 1973. returning from Ramsgate to Walton-on-Naze, 18ft "tabloid cruiser" towing 8ft pram dinghy. Weather NE, ish, with a leftover lumpy sea.

Dinghy surges down painter and smashes rudder stock, off N Foreland. Wave at passing Seadog (30ft-ish solid sort of GRP boat) for a tow - unusually for those days, they had a VHF, so they correctly put out a PAN message, whilst preparing to tow me into Margate for a repair. Margate ILB turns up, much to my embarrassment!

The poor chap must be feeling frightfully embarrassed. My attempt at an answer is that if he had not had children on board he should not have put out a message, but since he did have brats aboard, doubtless with an over-wrought mother, he was only being sensible. The CG reaction would have been more than he expected, but anyone would welcome the appearance of a lifeboat.

No, I don't think I criticise anyone's reactions here.

Of course, we should all try to avoid making a PAN message if we just run aground. In my case, all my Estuary encounters with sandbanks to date have occurred in boats with no radio on board, so I can't honestlyu say if I would have used one if I had it.

 

[Guest]

The embarrasing factor

They did the right thing. There is no harm in asking for help despite the fact that they'd have been ok with a rising tide but its easy to say in hindsight.

What if he hadnt asked for help, the sea built up and smashed him against the bank and they took on water. What if that water then blew the radio ?........

If in doubt, ask for help, I'm sure the coastguard were happy to help and relieve the boredom of the radio checks that seem to be every 10 minute in the Solent!

 

[Guest]

Re: Pan-Pan: isn\'t that what the call is for?

I interpret a PAN PAN not as a distress call per se, but an advisory that a situation could be developing. It neatly serves to put those people and agencies on alert that help may be needed.

I don't know the area, but if there was even a modest swell running (building?) and the bottom was hard sand, then I believe the call was correct. You can get a hell of a bashing in the Bristol Channel with one a two foot swell (I went aground on Saturday).

The CG has the option to send a boat or not, but their options become far more limited if no-one tells them that they MIGHT be needed.

 

[Guest]

It's easy to say the skipper of the Fisher over-reacted and probably the outcome would have been to sail away as the tide rose had he not made the call.

But its the "probable" bit that causes the doubt.

If there was a doubt it was sensible to put in the call.

As things turned out no harm came to anyone, the rescue system was exercised and only loss was a little face for the skipper of the Fisher.

These decisions are always a judgement call on everyones part and where the balance is between safety on one side against embarassment on the other it should not be a difficult decision.

I've spent my share of time sitting on the putty waiting of the tide, but the only time time I got into trouble was a medium/large bollocking for entering Whitby in marginal conditions without calling the lifeboat.

 

[Guest]

Sorry - Didn\'t mean to be triplicate!!

!

 

[Guest]

One of life\'s little coincidences?

One of the yachts that passed by in my incident was a Seadog,"Dogboat". Later that day when I spoke to the skipper he told me an interesting story.

The first owner had used her as a training boat in the early seventies, and so had installed, at vast expense, one of those huge grey 'Seafarer' VHF sets with the enormous channel selection dial. This was before minaturization, and few small yachts carried a VHF. But the present skipper did recall that he had mentioned once using it to call for assistance for a yacht in trouble in that area (possibly off Longnose Ledge).

The VHF set is still in use. The odd name for the yacht came about because the owner had been first officer on an escort corvette during the war, which were generally known as 'Dogboats', possibly because of their poor handling qualities.

 

[Guest]

Oddly enough

there must have been a couple of Seadogs sporting massive VHF sets in those distant days. Your posting caused me to exhume my logbook from the back of the bookcase. The boat that obliged us was named "Mutiny". Another episode from the same trip was funnier. I was quite tired and thought I was hallucinating when I saw an Elizabethan galleon ahead. I was not; it was the replica of the Golden Hind!

 

[Guest]

Re: It\'s an experience thing...

Boats aground can sound like hell on wheels when your below. This will put the willies up mum and the kids unless they've had a bit of experience.

Hours of Dads ego being subjected to Mums panickey contempt can result.

Mums are funny things. I've seen good women sailors with plenty of experience turn into complete novices by having the kids to worry about. That been said I have a friend who is an A&E doctor but if her kids get cut she's as bad as everyone else, well at first anyway.

Tom

 

[Guest]

If the incident happened after having a couple of beers at lunch time would he have called if he risked being breathalysed?

 

[Guest]

What is the question?

What would I have done as the skipper of the grounded craft, or as the skipper of a yacht likely to render assistance?

If the latter I would have offered to assist if possible or standby. If the former.....

a) Should the yacht have made a Pan-Pan call?

>>If recently stuck and normal efforts to release have failed, would re-calculate tides and time of release. Having found that the flood had started, would call CG on 16 > 67 (due to slight embarrassment) for opinion on sea state and risk of pounding within that time frame (at same time demonstrating great calm and control to possibly quite worried partner).

b)Dover CG response was to call out Margate lifeboat. Do you think that was the appropriate decision?

>>Try stopping them, having heard the words 'Pan Pan'.

c)The skipper was happy to accept this help, for which he had not asked. Should he have declined?

>>Skippers call, and we don't know what was going through his mind from this report. What help could the lifeboat be other than towing off a few minutes earlier than would be possible under his own steam? Alternative scenario 1 would be if it looked as though it might turn nasty, in which case a lifeboat on standby would be a great comfort. Alternative scenario 2, skipper is lost and grounded down a blind alley and the events have got on top of him.

d)Two other yachts were approximately one mile from the casualty. Both were deeper draft than the Fisher. One decided that it could not help, and continued on its way. The other contacted Dover CG and was asked to stand by. It was released after the lifeboat reached the casualty.

There but for the grace of god and all that....written by one who is well familiar of the putty due to regularly feeling a way in to places I shouldn't really be going at that particular time!

 

[Guest]

"Them salvage men from Margate, they\'re proper sharks." (long)

Thanks for all your comments. The moral, if there is one, is about how our modern approach to safety draws us inexorably from one reasonable step to another towards what seems like an ultimate over-reaction.

Maurice Griffiths wrote an anecdotal account in YM about 35 years ago, of another grounding in almost the same spot, which I am reproducing as it is both entertaining and shows just how much attitudes to rescue have changed.

--------

It was hereabouts on these cruel sands that I recollected another story I was told about a yacht called the Daisybelle, an old straight stem yawl of 16 tons or so, which had a nasty experience one dark night many years before. Her owner, then in his late seventies, told me the yarn one evening while we were sitting in the Royal Corinthian.

'We'd come across from Ostend, I and Pitt my skipper, and a lad we had with us, bound home to the Crouch,' he said. 'It was a fast passage with the wind coming sou'westerly. But as darkness closed in as we got abreast of the North Foreland and shaped our course up for the North East Spit the wind began to pipe up in earnest. We had to heave-to, drop the mizzen and get a reef in the main. By the time we were under way again it was pitch dark, and black as the inside of a cow but for the five flashes of the Foreland and the other lights along the coast. The ebb was already beginning to run to the north east'ard and I didn't like it one little bit, so I asked my skipper Pitt what he thought we ought to do. "Lay along the coost, sir," he said. He was a good Tollesbury man. "That'll blow hard afore dawn. We can find a lee along the coost, sir." So we hauled our sheets and just managed to lay along the South Channel with the lights of Margate, Westgate and then Birchington some distance to wind'ard of us.

It was cold on deck, for the old Daisybelle hadn't any proper cockpit then, and I asked Pitt why we couldn't anchor just where we were until daylight. "Naw sir, we can't do that," he says. "Not yit anyways, sir. Nearer the Hook'll be the best place." So with that we carry on for another hour, wet and cold from the spray and the lights on shore getting farther and farther away all the time. "This'll do, sir" calls Pitt at last from the foredeck. "Come on, Ted, give us a hand with the jib." While the boy muzzled the flogging jib and lashed it down to the bowsprit, Pitt tried to let go the anchor. But there was some delay and and good deal of shouting and cussing from for'ard, and I gathered that boy had carelessly passed the jib lashing round the anchor stock in the dark. Pitt told him off right enough, but by the time the anchor was down and the mainsail stowed we seemed to be riding in a lot of white water. "She's draggin', that she is," said Pitt and started to veer more cable. But he'd no sooner done that than her heel came down on the hard sand with a bump that shook the rigging and almost knocked us off our feet, and it shook me, I can tell you. We managed to get the mainsail up again and Pitt and the lad began to heave in on the windlass, but they couldn't get the cable in, and in the end we had to give up, stow the main again, and just wait for next high water, while the bumping became less and she started to lie over.

The Daisybelle was a deep boat, one of the old fashioned kind, and when the tide left us about midnight she lay so far over on her "billage", as Pitt called it, we had to walk about on the cabin lining. It was altogether a wretched night, for the wind steadily veered more in to the west and blew even harder. It was as cold as charity out there on the sands in the pitch dark with the old boat on her side and the halyards thundering against both masts in the wind. And the roar of the seas breaking on the edge of the sands to wind'ard of us wasn't an encouraging sound in the dark, I can tell you. The hours dragged by very slowly as we sat on the edge of the settee in the saloon and the boy managed to coax mugs of hot cocoa off the galley fire. I laced mine with something stronger, and felt better for it, I can tell you. "What had we better do, Pitt," I asked, for I didn't like the look of things one bit. "Had we better light a flare for help?" But Pitt only shook his head. "Never you worry, sir," he said. "We'll have her afloat come daylight. And if we did signal for help, sir, it'd only call out them salvage men from Margate, and they're proper sharks, they are."

I only hoped Pitt was right as we sat and waited until the water began to come back again. It was just beginning to get light in the East and still blowing hard from the west'ard when the old boat started to shudder with the waves hitting her. She lifted once or twice and fell back with a thud that shook her with a noise like thunder, and we had a job to hold on. Then as she lifted to another swell and fell back on to the hard sand once more the bilge water started to slosh up into the lockers behind the settees with a loud rushing noise. I found it unnerving enough, for I knew we drew nearly seven feet and I thought we'd have to wait some time before the water outside was deep enough to float us clear of the sand. I shall never forget as long as I live the sight of poor old Pitt's face as we fell with a heavier crash than ever and the water rushed into the lockers and squirted out into our faces through the ceiling ventilation holes. "Oh my gawd sir, wot 'as we done to deserve this," he cried. "Her billage is acomin' in, sir!"

I've laughed about it since, but at the time I was as scared as he was, I can tell you. But we were nearly upright by now and that was the last time our lee bilge struck the sand before the old boat thudded several times with her heel and then at last rode clear on her anchor cable. Of course, as soon as the sharks in Margate caught sight of us in the daylight they were out and alongside in their yawls like a lot of vultures, but we were afloat now, although making a fair amount of water through an opened garboard seam, I think, and we kept them off with boathooks, the scoundrels, while we got underway again.

That evening as the wind went down at sunset we were in the Crouch again, safe and very glad, I can tell you, to pick up our mooring and arrange to have the old boat slipped next day. I've never been on the sands since that night, all the years I have been sailing, and never want another one like it!'

 

[Guest]

It is very easy if you are sailing with two or three experienced sailors or more to handle a situation as described and you may decide that a PAN PAN call is not necesary. However sailing with the wife and kids is a different game. All of a sudden you have responsibility for a number of dependants and instead of all your crew being responsible for themselves with the family you shoulder the total responsibility. In this case I would not hesitate to PAN PAN. The bottom line is DO NOT TAKE UNNECESSARY RISKS AND DO NOT BE AFRAID TO CALL FOR HELP EARLY RATHER THAN LATER.

 

[Guest]

The one thing I have learned in 40+ years 'messing about in boats' both privately and professionally, is never to underestimate the sea. The potential for a minor problem to get out of hand and develop to a life threatening or even fatal scenario with startling speed seems greater on the water than anywhere else.

We were not there with this unfortunate skipper, and in my view if he felt the situation warranted a Pan-Pan, then he was right - whether because of any actual problem on board, or simply because of the potential dangers should things get further out of hand - like a windchange while waiting for the tide, which has been the cause of loss of many a good boat.

The Coastguards response in sending the Lifeboat seems to me to reflect that same 'due caution' as when things do start going more seriously wrong, it may well be too late to retreive the situation.

The only time I was offered lifeboat support was 20 years ago when a child aboard suffered a severe Asthma attack - as we were only a mile or so off Barmouth, it seemed unnecessary to me for the Lifeboat to come out and meet us. The Cox told me later they had not been out on a 'shout' for a while, and his crew were quite put out at missing an operational opportunity! (So was the child after he had recovered!)

 

[Guest]

Thanks for that story

and a nice little reminder of what YM was once all about!