Yacht lost on Shingles

[Angele]

He was still there at 2ish when we went in. Getting pulled off the mud by the Harbour Master.

... but had gone by 3pm (Monday) when I put to sea.

 

[[2068]]

Maybe the vessel missed the part about standing by or what it means. Last season I ended up relaying comms to Solent Coastguard and shouting encouragement to a skipper dangling in the water attached to his harness whilst Hayling Rescue came thundering along to do some proper rescuing. At least SG got an accurate position, which was more than the skipper's swmbo could manage, so some benefit of bobbing around nearby.

 

[oldharry]

I accept my words may appear a little harsh....but!

The CG wanted a vessel to standby, not to assist at that stage. If you're downtide and under sail, get the engine on and work back up. If you haven't got an engine make this clear in your transmission. If someone is later better able to assist (as RIB Rio was) then you can be released from the scene at any time.

The key ethos behind my post is at sea, if someone's in distress and you're nearby the location, then (until you know other assistance is available) you are duty bound to assist in any way that you can without putting you, your crew or your vessel in danger.

That is the theory, and what any of us should do. But: Needles channel with a F5+ and a strong tide, if I was any distance downwind/ downtide of the casualty, I too would have to give a negative. It is more than likely he knew he could not get back 'uphill' to help.

Not excusing the curt 'negative', but I would not waste airtime during an emergency with explanations justifying my inability to assist.

Or he may just be one of those 'a***hole yotties' we hear about!

 

[doris]

This must be one of the few times when a life raft could be a life saver despite the ship being intact. If it's all going t*ts up on the yacht and getting very iffy a jump into the raft, and as one will usually be on a lee shore, one would then get blown to the beach.
And to think that when racing there is no requirement for a raft for that category when often the racers are the chaps that dice with the banks!

I'm sure the East Coast chappies on the forum are all very familiar with this!!!

 

[VO5]

"aground between the Needles and Hurst Channel"



Yes - I heard that, and one in Portsmouth Harbour "You've fouled your propellor on a mooring? Are you still made fast to the mooring?" and one at Langstone Entrance "Solent CG, this is Fishing Boat $SOMETHING, I can see the boat in trouble, my ETA is about 60 seconds".

CG seemed rather keen on lat/long and less keen on range & bearing - 'tho we've DSC*, I'll be paying a bit more attention to relative position WRT charted objects in future - if only to avoid possible comments from the peanut gallery.
* I must try a non-alarm "position send" to CG - 6am on a Wednesday morning is probably a good time for a radio check ;-)

"The Peanut Gallery"...I Love It !

 

[VO5]

I have been following this tittle tattle and now I am going to say a few words.
I now live in Gibraltar but I know those waters very well.
The Shingle Bank is very treachorous because any porous rise has the ability to act in a sponge like manner in certain conditions. This is not the first yacht to come to grief there and it will not be the last.

None of you here were on board when this happened, nor was I for that matter.

All of us have second hand knowledge of the events and how they unfolded and none of us so far have been given an account or any explanation.

Therefore all commentary on this thread is pure conjecture, that is all.

No one is in any position to criticise because none of the pertinent facts that led to the grounding are known and none of us were on board let alone in command of the vessel in question.

Now suppose the vessel lost its steering through broken cables or hydraulic failure. Imagine this may have happened very quickly and there was no time to rig the emergency tiller, for example..

Imagine the vessel was under engine, and the engine died for whatever reason including the effects of fuel impurities...or a rope round the prop or whatever...

Imagine the vessel going on the bank and tilting and being thumped and water ingress...

Imagine loss of electricity and hence all electronics...

Imagine for the skipper possibly to cope with a hysterical SWIMBO and other seriously frightened crew..

...And all he has left are flares and a handheld..

This could explain the brevity of the Mayday, which in my view was sufficient for the CG to have an accurate idea of the positiion of the vessel in distress.

Now, I think, that instead of adopting the collective nit picking attitude so far displayed on this thread in the development of this discussion, would it not be more decent to offer consolation and give encouragement to sailors, and we don't even know how many, who have experienced the loss of a vessel and additionally the trauma of shipwreck, is my viewpoint.

 

[oldharry]

I have been following this tittle tattle and now I am going to say a few words.

Now, I think, that instead of adopting the collective nit picking attitude so far displayed on this thread in the development of this discussion, would it not be more decent to offer consolation and give encouragement to sailors, and we don't even know how many, who have experienced the loss of a vessel and additionally the trauma of shipwreck, is my viewpoint.

Ahhh! the voice of reason and sanity! Quite right of course. Not on this forum, but quite right....

 

[snooks]

None of you here were on board when this happened, nor was I for that matter.

The forum know best....and the forum doesn't let facts get in the way of a good finger pointing session

 

[colingr]

The forum know best....and the forum doesn't let facts get in the way of a good finger pointing session

Oy, who you talkin to

 

[lenseman]

. . . 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. . . .

Come on, be fair.

In 1989, a very large number of people phoning about the Hillsborough tragedy were using mobile phones.

When you use a mobile phone in an emergency, you can and do get routed through to a message handling centre many miles away from the actual emergency.

I have called from the M25 and been routed through to Nottingham call centre and on another occasion in Surrey I have been routed through to Maidstone in Kent. In an emergency like that where you are routed through to a centre many miles away, it is no good saying that you are on the High Street at the junction with Green Street Street.

In that kind of situation, it is far better to use a land-line than a mobile, that is why the motorway police prefer and ask that you use the emergency phones on the motorway rather than your mobile. They can pin-point you if you use the motorway phones

If you are going to rely on mobile phones in these circumstances you first need to say which county you are in followed by the district and then town. This gives the operator a fighting chance at passing all the relevant information to the emergency services.

It sea, it is the same. The watch-keeping officer or skipper needs to be fully aware of his position at all times. If you have just passed Shingles Elbow or Mid Shingles this vital information that can be passed giving a clearer idea as to position.

After the Mayday and yachts name, number of crew and reason for the distress, the message could have stated:

NEEDLES TOWARDS SOUTHAMPTON - COURSE 050 MAGNETIC - SPEED 3 KNOTS - JUST PASSED MID SHINGLES BUOY (to PORT) TWO MINUTES AGO.

or if coming from the west:

CHRISTCHURCH TOWARDS SOUTHAMPTON - COURSE 110 MAGNETIC - SPEED 3 KNOTS - JUST PASSED NORTH HEAD BUOY (to PORT) TEN MINUTES AGO.

The Watch-Officer has to know this information or he should not be standing the watch.

Most operators in the communications business can write that down as it is spoken even if they are using their own unique type of shorthand. It takes too long sometimes to rattle off the LAT-LONG even is it is to hand in an emergency.

Keep it short and succinct.

Oh, and by the way, I have no idea where Hillsborough is as I do not follow football and there are three places called Hillsborough in teh UK when I "Googled" it.

 

[elton]

In 1989, a very large number of people phoning about the Hillsborough tragedy were using mobile phones.

I doubt it. Hardly anyone had a mobile phone in 1989.

 

[lenseman]

I doubt it. Hardly anyone had a mobile phone in 1989.

Well I did, I had an analogue mobile phone (1G) and also had a System Four phone from British Telecom and paid for the Wales, Outer London and South East England regions. The later was used for my journey back to my farm in Mid Wales from the government radiocommunications research laboratories at RAF Kenley.

 

[RioRib]

As I am the skipper of Rio Rib I thought you might like to hear first hand what happened:

The yacht blu argent called a Mayday, and after the first vessel was unable to help, I offered assistance. You could see the keel of the yacht embedded into the shingle bank and they were taking on water. We provided lat and long for the CG and other status info, and tried to go in to assist, but I could only get within about 10 metres due to the depth - it was about 1-1.7 metres with a lot of wave swell and did not wish to risk grounding myself, especially as I had two yound children on board (their first time on the RIB !). CG rescue helicopter 104 arrived with the Yarmouth Lifeboat, who laucnhed their Y boat, due to the depth being too shallow for the ALB. 104 collected two casualities as the yacht began to break up and sink, and the Y boat rescued one casualty, transferred her to our RIB, and then colletced the second casualty. The Y Boat and ourselves then met the ALB and transferred casualties.

Its very easy for anyone to get caught out at sea, and I am just plased we were able to assist.

 

[Highland Bear]

Well said VO5.

 

[Racecruiser]

Beautifully put VO5 - I was thinking I would add something to this trail for a day or two but thought I would see how it developed and if any facts came out. None yet I see but I'll be interested to see when they do.

My sympathy is with the poor guy who lost his boat and no doubt had a pretty petrifying experience - none of us know how the boat got to that desperate position but the Needles channel in a F5/6 wind against tide (I assume it was) is bad enough and as you get close to the shingles the overfalls get worse. I imagine the boat was rising and falling 6 - 8 ft on every wave - no boat would survive for long.

Just a thought about racing boats pushing their luck with shoals - often true, but not the shingles. If you're in positive tide you want to stay in the middle and avoid the worst waves near the bank to keep boatspeed up. If in negative tide most likely you wouldn't take risks in any significant wind and may use the north channel or hug the Needles side.

Interesting to see the boat aground outside the Hamble - it's not unusual there. Inattention, engine failure, whatever but no comparison to what the shingles would have been like.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I also had a mobile in those days. Not much good as a phone, but ideal as a blunt instrument in an affray.

 

[VO5]

Beautifully put VO5 - I was thinking I would add something to this trail for a day or two but thought I would see how it developed and if any facts came out. None yet I see but I'll be interested to see when they do.

My sympathy is with the poor guy who lost his boat and no doubt had a pretty petrifying experience - none of us know how the boat got to that desperate position but the Needles channel in a F5/6 wind against tide (I assume it was) is bad enough and as you get close to the shingles the overfalls get worse. I imagine the boat was rising and falling 6 - 8 ft on every wave - no boat would survive for long.

Just a thought about racing boats pushing their luck with shoals - often true, but not the shingles. If you're in positive tide you want to stay in the middle and avoid the worst waves near the bank to keep boatspeed up. If in negative tide most likely you wouldn't take risks in any significant wind and may use the north channel or hug the Needles side.

Interesting to see the boat aground outside the Hamble - it's not unusual there. Inattention, engine failure, whatever but no comparison to what the shingles would have been like.

Now that is a very good post indeed and may I say not because it praises my viewpoint but for a very important reason.

Surely this thread presents the opportunity to discuss the dangers off The Needles and The Shingles Bank under different conditions of tide, wind and visibility.

We should pounce upon opportunities such as these to expand the discussion and not to waste them by posting inconsequential chit chat but by getting down to the topic for the mutual benefit of members and visitors.

I cannot contribute as much as I would like on this because all my charts and pilot books are on board my boat, which is far away at the moment, and to which I do not have direct access. I will have access in mid May as I am sailing her across the pond from the USA to Gibraltar.

But from memory, and from discussions with regard to the "Round the Island Race" there are a couple of wrecks on the other side, that is, close to The Needles, that have given grief in the past.

I don't know if they have been blown up or removed.

One of them was called something like "Carcassy" or "Vindassy" or "Randassy" or suchlike.

Does anyone here know about this ?

 

[jimi]

Its the old boiler and its damn close to the Needles LH and on a very shallow reef, does'nt bother most people

 

[Twister_Ken]

Varvassi, and it only annoys those cutting the corner on the RTIR.

Otherwise there's nothing shallow enough to embarrass a small boat south of the Shingles.

 

[VO5]

Varvassi, and it only annoys those cutting the corner on the RTIR.

Otherwise there's nothing shallow enough to embarrass a small boat south of the Shingles.

That's it ! The Varvassi...
But wasn't there some talk of it being blown up by the Navy to clear the risk on RTIR ?

I remember one year two boats came to grief with it.