Prince William scares yacht off Southwold

[Javelin]

So we were off on a little jolly to test out a few things when suddenly we were called up on ch16 by a helicopter and was taken to 67.
"Are you busy?" we were asked.
"er not really, just having a play"
"Well would you mind if one of our helicopters came over for some training?"
"No, that would be fine."
"Please go onto port tack and hold a course of 310."

That was the last thing I heard as the chopper was now 100' off our stern and the noise was immense, not a chance of hearing any crew member let alone the radio.
I had to mime the course to my friend who was steering, and try and impress on him that he needs to keep it there.

The chopper then had numerous runs in from astern to directly above with what looked like no more than a fag paper between my vhf aerial and the chopper.
Did I mention the noise?

After a while a guy hooked up and headed our way again.
They dipped the anti static line in about 10 feet astern and then slowly brought the guy towards us.
He got to about three feet away and then they backed off.
They tried again a couple of times and then the guy on the line shrugged at us, gesturing something derogatory towards the pilot, tapped his head a couple of times and got winched up.

One hell of an experience.
and the noise..........

 

[Tomahawk]

If it was .will.... did you get an autograh or photo?

 

[DavidofMersea]

If it was .will.... did you get an autograh or photo?

HRH is about to join, if he has not already, the Air Ambulance, no longer SAR

 

[photodog]

Great pics!

 

[MikeBz]

Interesting. We were sat on the beach midway between Southwold and Dunwich watching the helicopter & wondering what was going on.

 

[iainbluk]

Great pics. When we had a similar visit last year we were too busy to take pics unfortunately, although they did leave us the long line plus weight which I havnt yet found a use for. Dont think it was likely to be HRH at the controls though, he has left the RAF and would not be current on the sea king for even practice rescue work.

 

[Koeketiene]

HRH is about to join, if he has not already, the Air Ambulance, no longer SAR

Wasn't he stationed somewhere in Wales when doing SAR?

 

[DavidofMersea]

Wasn't he stationed somewhere in Wales when doing SAR?

Yes RAF Valley, which is in the north West corner of Angelsea, where my SiL was stationed

 

[xyachtdave]

One good reason for having your VHF on 16....sounds like great fun!

 

[Javelin]

Funny thing was that initially we were on Ch12 having only cleared the harbour 10 minutes previously.
We saw the chopper a couple of miles out to see and it flew a wide circle around us.
Suddenly I noticed the radio giving off a lot of static and my guess was the chopper was calling someone so I quickly dove below and flicked to 16 and was almost immediately called up.

interesting to note the power they were cranking out was enough to bleed through 4 vhf channels.

 

[Ianqv]

Fantastic! great pics!