Thanks to all involved.

[Buck Turgidson]

I posted this in the Simo thread but think it deserves a thread of it's own.

Well that was an interesting afternoon.
Just after lunch I was contacted by Zürich RCC to inform me that my PLB was active. I left it with Mick in Horta with the comment "don't set it off until you have to abandon ship!". That first call was followed by numerous calls to Falmouth Coastguard and MRCC Ponta Delgada, along with SPOT RCC in the States and Micks partner in the UK. Here we are at 7pm and I'm relieved to learn that he's been picked up by a Spanish fishing boat after having hit something, possibly a whale and despite his best efforts SIMO is was taking on more water than he could pump out. Simo will sink in the next few hours and Mick will be taken to Vigo in Spain.

FastFind 220 best couple of hundred quid I ever spent.

 

[prv]

Wow. Fantastic advert for these things, as I'm guessing otherwise he'd have simply been lost at sea, never heard from again?

Pete

 

[FullCircle]

Glad you have a result, shame about the boat though.....

 

[Buck Turgidson]

It's a real shame as SIMO was a really lovely old boat.
The PLB did the business alright along with the various rescue services. A word of caution though. He also had a spot tracker and it transpires from the info I have that he sent a spot SOS at 03:41Z, however when I called spot Europe just after I got the call from Zürich RCC they were unable to tell me anything and only at around 17:00Z did I get a call from the Spot RCC to confirm he had sent the SOS. They had just received the message and hadn't initiated anything at that time. Meanwhile Ponta Delgada MRCC had been busy and Mick was safe.

I was pretty annoyed that despite giving the ID of the spot tracker Spot Europe were useless as at that time a second SOS signal would have ruled out the chance of it being a false alarm.

Still all's well that ends well and a mighty thumbs up to the FastFind 220.

His position was 43°23N 22°16W so thanks to the fishermen too as he was a long way from land.

 

[JVL]

A sad end too a lovely working classic.

 

[oldvarnish]

Glad it was a good outcome for the crew, if not for the boat

Regarding SPOT: I have a friend who was forced to abandon ship off northern Norway. He set off his EPRIB and his SPOT. The first phone call to his wife came from SPOT.

(Of course, the CG may have been busy organising his rescue- which was very swift- but it did show that the SPOT people were more than up to the job on this occasion)

 

[chinita]

It is small miracle. We had been watching his progress since 4 July and it all seemed to be going well. We always had sight worries about Mick doing that leg alone but felt Simo would get him through.

Allie burst into tears when I told her and I wasn't far off.