Mayday Relay!
A dramatic event made the headlines during the summer as can be seen from the newspaper extract above. Watchkeepers Janet and Mike were on duty that evening in the NCI Lookout tower at Fort Blockhouse; the following is Janet’s account of what happened……
"Back in the summer I was on watch with Mike for the evening. The tide had just turned and being ‘springs’ it was rushing out of the harbour.
Things were quietening down from a busy day with swimmers, jumpers and large groups of youths on the beach. When we saw a group that had been playing with an inflatable ball at the waters edge watching the ball floating out with the tide. One of the youths started to swim after it. We realised he was not going to be able to catch it up and decided it looked as though he was going to get into difficulties.
We initiated a mayday relay to the coastguard on Channel 16. After the initial call it was a case of following the instructions given by the coastguard and answering their questions. It was reassuring that local vessels were following a dual watch and also heard the initial call and offered to help. The ball was long gone out of sight and the lad was picked up at no 3 Bar Buoy (thus showing how far and how quickly he had been taken by the tide) by a fishing vessel and transferred to the police launch to be brought into safety at the camber.
The Isle of Wight car ferry had also stopped and sounded its horn drawing attention to the incident.
We were given an incident number from the coastguard and did the relevant paperwork before informing the management team. The following day I had a call from Colin and Chris asking how I was, which was kind of them.
Apparently this was the first time that we at Coastwatch had initiated a Mayday Relay. I was very glad I had Mike on duty with me as to deal with this incident by myself would have been quite traumatic. Hopefully the lad has learnt his lesson as had we not seen him and reacted as we did I shudder to think what the outcome would have been. "
Just to add a few editorial comments…..
…. Just for information… a Mayday Relay is the term and prowords used when issuing a Mayday call on behalf of some other person or vessel which cannot make the call themselves.
…. Janet and Mike have also mentioned that having made the Mayday Relay call, VHF Channel 16 then got very busy, with a lot of other vessels ….. some of which were well out of area…. calling in to offer help. This increased their workload and somewhat impeded necessary communication with the Coastguard. Offers of help are good (and in fact, vessels are legally required to assist others) but it’s also good to listen first to understand where the event is happening.
…. And finally…. Rare though these sorts of events are, they are the sorts of things we are trained to deal with and are there to see and react to. But we are all volunteers and receive no official funding. Please help us keep doing what we do by making a donation to keep our station open and operating. You can do this online by visiting our donation page here…. https://www.nci.org.uk/stations/donations
