'Almost unintelligible' Cell Saves Dismasted Yacht
A 'near miss' SOS from an almost unintelligible mobile phone 'illustrates only too well the value of being properly equipped and checking everything, including radios, before and during a sea going passage,' according to the Coastguard that saved four people on a yacht off the UK coast.
'Coastguard in rescue mode'
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'If they had drifted another mile or two offshore there would have been no communications at all and the outcome could have been different.'
At eight oclock yesterday morning, a number of almost unintelligible mobile phone calls were received by Lincolnshire Police as well as Yarmouth and Humber Coastguard. It was eventually deduced that a yacht was in distress off Lincolnshire, at the very limit of mobile phone range.
Yarmouth Coastguard were able to triangulate the call and position the casualty approximately 2 miles off Skegness. Skegness All Weather and Inshore Lifeboats were launched to assist.
Of the four people on board, one was very dehydrated from acute sea sickness. The yacht had lost her mast and there was rigging around the propeller which had caused damage to the stern gland and created a leak.
The distressed crew members were taken aboard Skegness Lifeboat and the casualty vessel taken under tow. Humber All Weather Lifeboat rendezvoused with Skegness Lifeboat and took the yacht crew to safety at Grimsby and thence to hospital, while Skegness Lifeboat continued towing the yacht.
Humber Lifeboat later returned to take over the tow and commence pumping water out of the yacht, so that Skegness Lifeboat could return to her home port after a long service.
Yarmouth Coastguard Watch Manager, Peter Wheeler said :-
As always, we worked very well with our colleagues in Humber Coastguard and the local Lifeboats provided their usual professional service.
However, if we had not known of the situation this yacht was in, we could not have helped and they would have been in a very serious predicament indeed.
by Fred Caygill/Sail-world 
Copacabana, NSW
