graham
Well-Known Member
Sailing goosewinged in fresh breeze just me and the wife aboard when we heard a very distressed female voice call on 16 Mayday Mayday Mayday this is Yacht XYZ XYZ (Dont want to embarrass them or break the confidentiality of radio messages).
Usually in our area the coastguard will respond instantly.By the time we had rolled up the genoa to steady the boat still no reply .So I called for station calling Mayday Call again with your position.
After a few attempts nothing so I reported it to Coast Guard and we carried on , all the fun of the day had evaporated as the call was loud ,clear and obviously genuine.I scanned around with the binoculars but could only see two other boats both looked normal.
Short while later to our great relief "XYZ" reported on 16 to CG. they had had a man overboard incident now recovered and no assistance required.
mood lifted again we cracked out the Genoa and continued surfing our way up the Channel .
Congratulations must be in order to the person who we now know singlehandedly got back and rescued the person very quickly in a lumpy sea.but if they had given even an approximate indication of position then a local lifeboat was literally 15 minutes away.Had the rescue not been so resoundingly successfull this may have been vital.
i hope not to have caused any embarrasement by posting this just that the rest of us can perhaps remember to at least discuss this scenario with our crew more often.
Also makes DSC connected to GPS seem more and more attractive.(Even to a tightwad sailor like me /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gifbefore anyone else says it..... )
Usually in our area the coastguard will respond instantly.By the time we had rolled up the genoa to steady the boat still no reply .So I called for station calling Mayday Call again with your position.
After a few attempts nothing so I reported it to Coast Guard and we carried on , all the fun of the day had evaporated as the call was loud ,clear and obviously genuine.I scanned around with the binoculars but could only see two other boats both looked normal.
Short while later to our great relief "XYZ" reported on 16 to CG. they had had a man overboard incident now recovered and no assistance required.
mood lifted again we cracked out the Genoa and continued surfing our way up the Channel .
Congratulations must be in order to the person who we now know singlehandedly got back and rescued the person very quickly in a lumpy sea.but if they had given even an approximate indication of position then a local lifeboat was literally 15 minutes away.Had the rescue not been so resoundingly successfull this may have been vital.
i hope not to have caused any embarrasement by posting this just that the rest of us can perhaps remember to at least discuss this scenario with our crew more often.
Also makes DSC connected to GPS seem more and more attractive.(Even to a tightwad sailor like me /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gifbefore anyone else says it..... )
