Just another cruising sailor to the aid of his fellow cruiser...

11:34 AM Sat 14 Nov 2009 GMT

'SV Quietly stood by until rescue was effected - photo by Dalton Williams' .

The camaraderie of the sea has been unwritten lore ever since sailors ventured into oceans. It's no different today, but the sacrifices that are made by cruising sailors for each other often go unrecorded and unacknowledged.

This week Rhode Island based magazine Blue Water Sailing, in their newsletter Cruising Compass, acknowledged the good Samaritan cruiser who did what we all knew he would, and stood by a fellow cruiser who had lost his mast in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean.

Dalton Williams from SV Quietly told his own story: 'We were sailing between the Tobago Cays and Bequia in the Grenadines when we saw something unusual on the horizon and looked through the binoculars.

'It was a dismasted boat. We drove to the boat in distress as fast as possible. Fortunately everyone on board was ok, but their radio antenna was under water and we were the first people to see them.

'We passed a hand held VHF to them so they would be able to talk and then relayed messages to St. Vincent Coast Guard. We stayed with them until the Coast Guard arrived and another boat was dispatched from the charter company and successfully rescued the guest and put staff crew on board to get the dismasted boat back to port.'

'Good job!' says Cruising Compass, and chose the above photo as their 'cruising shot of the week'. Good job indeed, but just another cruising sailor doing what cruising sailors do best - coming to the aid of a fellow sailor.

by Cruising Compass/Sail-World Cruising