rickp
Active member
We had a great few days on the water at the beginning of last week, but saw two situations which caused me and the crew to discuss whether we should call something into the coastguard or not. Both instances where yachts aground, which we spotted first on radar as definite, non-moving returns on drying heights.
The first was on the shingle bank by the Needles - looked to be a 40' french yacht pretty well aground, though not heeling over. It was about low tide and didn't see any signs of distress so we didn't call the coastguard.
The second was well aground on the East Winner bank, just outside of Langstone. Yacht was already heeling well, with an hour or so to low water. Again, couldn't see any signs of distress but they certainly weren't going to be comfortable and the wind was blowing onshore so could be dangerous, come float-off time. As it happens, whilst we were debating this - the yacht called up Solent Coastguard anyway. No GPS, but did have a chart and thought they were on Langstone bar. We changed course to get closer to give Solent a position and description - and asked if we could do anything (not that we could get close enough really). Solent had dispatched the Portsmouth lifeboat and released us.
You can see where we changed course on the track.
So would you have called either of the above in to Solent, or assumed the skipper of the boats would make some signs of distress if that were the case?
Rick
The first was on the shingle bank by the Needles - looked to be a 40' french yacht pretty well aground, though not heeling over. It was about low tide and didn't see any signs of distress so we didn't call the coastguard.
The second was well aground on the East Winner bank, just outside of Langstone. Yacht was already heeling well, with an hour or so to low water. Again, couldn't see any signs of distress but they certainly weren't going to be comfortable and the wind was blowing onshore so could be dangerous, come float-off time. As it happens, whilst we were debating this - the yacht called up Solent Coastguard anyway. No GPS, but did have a chart and thought they were on Langstone bar. We changed course to get closer to give Solent a position and description - and asked if we could do anything (not that we could get close enough really). Solent had dispatched the Portsmouth lifeboat and released us.
You can see where we changed course on the track.
So would you have called either of the above in to Solent, or assumed the skipper of the boats would make some signs of distress if that were the case?
Rick