All-night air and sea search for lone sailor

by Lauren Hockey on 14 Oct 2014 Volunteer lifeboat crews from the South coast of the UK battled high winds and large seas in complete darkness the night of October 6th to help search for a lone sailor stranded in the Solent.

Lifeboats from Bembridge and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight launched around 6.45pm on Monday (6 October) after HM Coastguard received a distress call from an individual on a trimaran.

The man was brought to safety almost 12 hours later by the Weymouth RNLI all-weather lifeboat.

With force 5-6 winds and a large swell, RNLI lifeboat volunteers joined search and rescue helicopters from Portland and Lee-on-Solent and the Royal Navy vessel HMS St Albans with searching an area 37 miles south of the Needles just before 7pm.

Despite searching until the early hours, the search effort was stood down at 2.30am as conditions worsened.

It was two hours later, as the British naval vessel HMS St Albans returned to its exercise area, that the man was spotted clinging to his dismasted boat 18 miles south of Portland Bill. Weymouth’s all-weather lifeboat Ernest and Mabel was launched to recover the man and bring him back to the safety of land – almost 12 hours after his ordeal began.

Andy Sargeant, Coxswain of Weymouth all-weather lifeboat, said: ‘We launched the lifeboat at 3.45am, and were on scene by 5.10am.

‘The waves were about 2.5m and the trimaran was listing quite heavily. The man was confused and disorientated as you would expect, given the length of time he’d been there.’

Despite his ordeal, the man was not deemed to need urgent medical attention and was taken ashore by the Weymouth volunteer crew, where he was checked over by a waiting ambulance. He is said to be well but suffering the effects of the cold.

James Pink, Deputy Second Coxswain at Bembridge RNLI, added: ‘It’s fantastic to know that he was out there and that he’s safe now. It was a big area to search, especially in the dark. The Coastguard did a fantastic job using all of its search and rescue assets and co-ordinating the RNLI website