Yacht lost on Shingles

A

Aardee

Well-Known Member
Joined
22 Jan 2004
Messages
3,039
Location
Portsmouth
Visit site
I thought I'd post this, bearing in mind the discussion a couple of weeks ago regarding the various options available to someone rounding the Needles & heading for Hurst in a strong blow.

Early this afternoon, a 27' yacht was lost on the Shingles. All four crew were safely recovered but the vessel was left to break up. I heard the drama unfolding over the VHF while tinkering safely on my mooring.

A sobering start to a new season, and a reminder that the sea can be very unforgiving...
 
We'll be seeing the story in YM before long, with the writer being treated - with a high degree of sycophancy - as some sort of 'survival hero'.

It'll all have been the fault of a) the weather forecast, b) the boat's designer, c) the inexperienced crew, d) the almanac, e) who'd have expected a bludy big sandbank there anyway?

It's all someone else's fault.....

;)
 
If is is anything like the shingle spits off the Deben and the Ore, and unlike sandbanks, it will suffer the hidden danger that, at certain stages of the tide, there can be a significant flow through the bank. Certainly, on the Deben spit this effect can literally suck a boat on if it gets too close and doesn't allow for the increased cross-set.
 
It was a lovely day with a 'fresh breeze' rather than the forecast gale so it must have been a catalogue of problems, or one v dumb cock up, to get caught there. If they knew the bank was there either sail or engine should have sorted things.

Question is...Did they know it was there??
 
Needles Channel

Just lucky they were all rescued .. this is another example of how dangerous the Needles Channel is . Well done to the RNLI and Coastguard Helicopter for doing such a good job .
It also proves is the need to keep a safe sheltered anchorage in Studland Bay.
All we need now is some idiot blagging on about the enviromental impact of this sunken craft !!
The MCA newsroom has posted a bulletin about how busy they were in the Solent this weekend .
 
Last edited:
Needles Channel - Dangerous or Not

No no no - It is the user who is dangerous- the channel is not dangerous but does contain risks. It is the users who are dangerous to themselves and others if these risks are not known, assessed or mitigated against.

For many it is sheer lack of exprience or they are in that ' dangerous ' period sometime after qualification when natural overconfidence creeps in and before the message has been rammed home by a few oh **** moments that the unexpected will always **** on you at the worst possible time. This is well documented in car drivers, aircraft pilots, train drivers etc.


I have no doubt though that YM will report this as Lady Campanula suggests.

Brian
 
We also heard the drama unfold on the radio and it's great news that all aboard were rescued safely.

One contributing factor could be that there was a possible lack of charts and/or plotter aboard. The reason I say this is the skipper couldn't give a lat & long to the CG when issuing the Mayday, relying solely on visual references.
 
ChiPete said:
We also heard the drama unfold on the radio and it's great news that all aboard were rescued safely.

One contributing factor could be that there was a possible lack of charts and/or plotter aboard. The reason I say this is the skipper couldn't give a lat & long to the CG when issuing the Mayday, relying solely on visual references.
Click to expand...

Astonishing to learn that Solent Coastguard doesn't know where the Shingles is (are?). :confused:
 
The CG, who couldn't get a fix from the skipper, ended up asking if they were on the Shingles. This was confirmed by the RIB Rio who was assisting on scene.
 
ChiPete said:
The CG, who couldn't get a fix from the skipper, ended up asking if they were on the Shingles. This was confirmed by the RIB Rio who was assisting on scene.
Click to expand...

So if the casualty could not give a Lat and Long, and they did not know where they where, what were they navigating by, AA road map and a Tom Tom?

Its hardly surprising they ran into one of the most notorious (potential) hazards on the West approach to the Solent, suppose if they had come in the Eastern approach, would they have run into the Nab?
 
galadriel said:
So if the casualty could not give a Lat and Long, and they did not know where they where, what were they navigating by, AA road map and a Tom Tom?

Its hardly surprising they ran into one of the most notorious (potential) hazards on the West approach to the Solent, suppose if they had come in the Eastern approach, would they have run into the Nab?
Click to expand...

Probably the IoW
 
Have to say I've sailed in and out of the Needles many times and can't remember using a lat and long. (other than entering a waypoint).
Pilotage does not really need you to know the lat and long, your position relative to the line of buoys defining the channel is more the issue.
It maybe suggests they did not know how to get a lat and long out of the GPS or it had already stopped working by then.
It reminds me of the Hillsborough disaster where the 999 operators were forced to keep asking for the postcode, despite it being bleeding obvious where the problem was.
It's good to see everyone is OK, and I will be interested to hear the chain of events that caused this. It could be something like steering failure which could do the same to any one of us, so we should slow down a bit condemning the casualty perhaps?

I don't immediately see that this means the Needles channel is more dangerous than any other exposed narrow channel, just because the land one side is covered by water.
 
galadriel said:
So if the casualty could not give a Lat and Long, and they did not know where they where, what were they navigating by, AA road map and a Tom Tom?

Its hardly surprising they ran into one of the most notorious (potential) hazards on the West approach to the Solent, suppose if they had come in the Eastern approach, would they have run into the Nab?
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the boat was already taking on a lot of water when they made the Mayday call (I'm guessing it all went pear-shaped pretty quickly) - Maybe the skipper felt it unsafe to go below to check the GPS/ chart under the circumstances.

Having said that, during the initial exchanges he did describe their situation as being "aground between the Needles and Hurst Channel" so maybe they were (for whatever reason) unaware of precisely where they were.
 
Everyone has heard the old saying:

When you are surrounded by alligators it is difficult to remember that the task was to drain the swamp.

If this boat had a mechanical problem which also related to power, the it would have been very easy for them to have lost sight of their exact position whilst dealing with the emergency, and for loss of power to have meant loss of GPS. From there to being on the shingle is a very easy and painful transition.

Once again the armchair sailors are pronouncing the blame whilst not having any of the facts.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top