Penlee RNLI Rescue Last Night

[Dino]

This is crazy stuff… French 40 footer with 8 people onboard out in 65mph (gusting 85mph) winds last night. 2 miles from a Lee shore with insufficient safety kit. Seems very unfair to put RNLI crew’s lives at risk in a situation like this.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?st...xwhCT4buX4keWC7NeXAVw4BNKl&id=660325924028593

Eight people airlifted to safety from sinking yacht in 85mph winds | ITV News

 

[Concerto]

Words escape me. 8 people go sailing in a badly equipped vessel in conditions that had been predicted to be severe. They all should be grateful that their stupidity did not result in the loss of any lives. They put RNLI volunteers and Rescue 924 helicopter lives at risk.

 

[Sandy]

Never understand why hull windows are so popular.

 

[Concerto]

Never understand why hull windows are so popular.

Those hull windows are small compared to the current breed of yachts being built now. Last year at the boat show I was chatting with the Fairline dealer for the South of France, his biggest warranty problem is leaking hull windows. Relying on just adhesive to hold the window in the hull is madness, there should be some mechanical fixing. In years to come leaking windows will become a major problem for all hull windows and probaly increase the number of RNLI rescues.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

I can't understand how a French boat would be underequipped in this manner, as they have strictly enforced rules in this regard.
In the video the yacht seems to have been able to make way onder engine, in what appears to have been a large, but not unmanageable swell, with no sign of breaking waves. They had six people capable of forming a chain, to bale out the water with a bucket, (I presume they had atleast one bucket?), and even if they did not have battery capacity to power an electric bilge pump, they would have had at least one manual one. Snowflakes IMHO!

 

[Sandy]

Those hull windows are small compared to the current breed of yachts being built now. Last year at the boat show I was chatting with the Fairline dealer for the South of France, his biggest warranty problem is leaking hull windows. Relying on just adhesive to hold the window in the hull is madness, there should be some mechanical fixing. In years to come leaking windows will become a major problem for all hull windows and probaly increase the number of RNLI rescues.

Having toured the Princess Yacht factory in Plymouth and understanding the thicknesses of the hull and resulting flexing you do wonder what will happen one dark and stormy night, like last night, when one of those 'big windowed' boats is caught on a lee shore.

The Met Office issued this yesterday

Inshore waters forecast to 12 miles offshore
12:00 (UTC) on Mon 31 Oct 2022 to 12:00 (UTC) on Tue 1 Nov 2022

Lyme Regis to Lands End including the Isles of Scilly - Strong wind warning

24 hour forecast: Southeast 5 or 6, becoming cyclonic gale 8 to storm 10, then southwest 6 to gale 8 later. Moderate or rough, occasionally very rough. Rain or showers developing. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.

The NCI weather station is at the top of a cliff and I would not trust their wind speed indication given the direction due to updrafts.

 

[jdc]

I was at anchor in the river Fal last night, and even-up river the conditions when the front came through were pretty horrid; visibility was ~200m, pitch dark with driving rain, and the boat heeling 20° in the gusts. And this was in the Fal, in Mounts Bay it would have been horrendous!

I take it the 'Snowflakes' comment above was meant to be tongue-in-cheek?

 

[Capt Popeye]

Well re the comments about putting Lifeboat Personel at risk; surely all lifeboat Personnel put their own lives at risk , by choice , its a low risk perhaps , owing to the Very Well fitted out Boats , Training , safety gear , uniform , all made /built for dangerous conditions

Cannot understand how any Boat /Craft can get so close inshore without our Coast Guards being aware of it , then ordering it to move offshore into safer waters , or hiring in a Tug to move it into safer waters ?

We were ashore yesterday , in North Devon , near Clovely , and the Driving Rain was really Heavy , the wind was also really strong ; the combined effect was to obliterate any distant view all together , so loosing ones bearings was quite possible in that Storm

Really nasty

 

[dom]

None of us know the lead-up which underpinned this rescue.
So, I‘d say we should all be happy with a good outcome.
Judging doesn’t necessarily help unless in possession of the full facts
Which the internet never has

 

[rotrax]

I understand it was a Charter boat.

I expect they have lost their deposit..............................................

 

[Frogmogman]

First off. Many congratulations to the Penlee crew for an outstanding rescue. I feel humbled by the bravery and selflessness of the RNLI crews going out in such horrendous conditions.

Looking at the photos, it appears that the boat is a Bavaria 40 Sport yacht from the Cap West company, who operate out of Cherbourg, Dielette and Saint Malo. I find it hard to believe that wouldn’t have had adequate safety equipment on board for the number of crew embarked.

 

[laika]

Judging doesn’t necessarily help unless in possession of the full facts

You are quite correct. But having been thinking vague thoughts along the lines of "thank goodness for pretty good weather forecasts" as grinding fender noises kept me half awake last night I do confess to a little curiosity on the back story.

 

[Sandy]

Cannot understand how any Boat /Craft can get so close inshore without our Coast Guards being aware of it , then ordering it to move offshore into safer waters , or hiring in a Tug to move it into safer waters ?

If the boat had AIS or had called Falmouth on CH16 then the CG would be aware of them, as the CG requested the RNLI to launch they must have known they were at sea. The UK, unlike the French, has done away with the system of lookout posts. In England NCI is performing the function as lookout, but only during the hours of daylight. The French Semaphore System is manned 24/7 by the Navy - something to do with the English continually harassing their shores.

I'd be interested to hear if the CG has the authority to order a pleasure vessel offshore. I know after the 1981 Penlee Lifeboat Disaster the CG has powers to instruct a tug to a commercial vessel at risk.

 

[ylop]

I think you are reading too much into the not enough equipment to abandon the vessel. What equipment would that be? Dry suits perhaps? I think it is a strange request to ask people to abandon ship in conditions where it was too dangerous to transfer a crewman and pump but the vessel survived a long slow tow to shore.

 

[ylop]

Cannot understand how any Boat /Craft can get so close inshore without our Coast Guards being aware of it , then ordering it to move offshore into safer waters , or hiring in a Tug to move it into safer waters ?

.

do you think our CG are sitting staring at radar screens watching what is happening all the time? Even if they were, how close is too close? 2 miles is probably fine if your are making reasonable way? If only becomes a problem if you can’t make way offshore - as seemed to be the case here? So ordering is pointless? The MCGA do have emergency towing vessels (designed for tankers etc not pleasure craft). Their response time is longer than the RNLI and their size just as likely to destroy a yacht; standard commercial tugs would be very slow and may not be any better equipped for the conductions than an AW lifeboat. This is the sort of comment I’d expect on the daily mail not a yachting forum where people presumably have some idea how the sea around the U.K. is managed?

I'd be interested to hear if the CG has the authority to order a pleasure vessel offshore. I know after the 1981 Penlee Lifeboat Disaster the CG has powers to instruct a tug to a commercial vessel at risk.

id need to check but my gut feel is it may apply to any vessel rather than just commercial vessel. However my recollection is that order a vessel to take some sort of assistance requires not just the MCGA local office but the formal involvement of the Secretary of State’s Representative. My guess is the lifeboat would have been on scene with a tow rope before they could realistically have escalated it to the SOSREP and briefed them… so unless someone was refusing help (which they were not) this is a totally hypothetical distraction.

sail is totally destroyed - do you think the in mast reefing was jammed and they had to leave it to flog?

 

[Capt Popeye]

Well , if our Coast Guard are not checking for craft closing in onto our shores , who the /// is watching out for Illegal craft then ? Certainly the RNLI are not either ,

So are our shores left unguarded or observed ?

So much for Homeland Security then ?

Perhaps Putin is more aware of our security (the lack of) than we are ?

 

[Bobc]

An abject lesson to all about what a bad idea hull portlights are.

 

[Sandy]

sail is totally destroyed - do you think the in mast reefing was jammed and they had to leave it to flog?

Difficult to tell with that grainy picture, it looks like the main has a halyard and that might be a sail bag on the boom. Perhaps a reef in the main and for some reason they were unable to get a second or third reef in.

I've always found French sailors extremely competent and do look out for their fellow seafarers; especially ones sailing at this time of year. A few weeks ago on passage from Fowey to Plymouth a French solo sailor, with whom we had coffee the day before, called the CG when the clag came down and he lost us visually and from AIS in a F7 gusting F8. The CG could see us on AIS bounding east well above hull speed against the tide and were good enough to call the shore contact to ask us to call them when we arrived in Plymouth.

 

[Motor_Sailor]

IIRC it was after the Braer tanker wreck on Shetland that legislation was finally introduced to give the Secretary of State the power to order a stricken commercial vessel to accept a tow from a salvage tug to avoid a pollution disaster.

Several years later, the Coastguard took these powers (which they themselves didn't actually hold) and ordered the Harwich lifeboat to take a yacht in tow that was overdue, but not in any risk. Such was the outcry about 'the police state interfering with our sailing rights' (probably from the same sort of internet heroes now complaining about the CG's lack of action here), that the very limited powers to prevent large scale oil pollution were clarified.

 

[Frogmogman]

Difficult to tell with that grainy picture, it looks like the main has a halyard and that might be a sail bag on the boom. Perhaps a reef in the main and for some reason they were unable to get a second or third reef in.

I've always found French sailors extremely competent and do look out for their fellow seafarers; especially ones sailing at this time of year. A few weeks ago on passage from Fowey to Plymouth a French solo sailor, with whom we had coffee the day before, called the CG when the clag came down and he lost us visually and from AIS in a F7 gusting F8. The CG could see us on AIS bounding east well above hull speed against the tide and were good enough to call the shore contact to ask us to call them when we arrived in Plymouth.

The boat is fitted with lazy jacks and a lazy bag.

I agree with you about the readiness of French sailors to call up on others behalf. The course I did for my French VHF licence did seem more rigorous than the one I did with the RYA many years ago, (mind you, with all of the advances in telecommunications over the past decades, hardly surprising). We were definitely encouraged to call up when in doubt, rather than umming and ahhing and holding back, on the basis that the authorities having early warning leads to better outcomes. The presence of manned semaphores all around the French coast probably encourages this behaviour too.