When Aberystwyth RNLI lifeboat crew member Alex Evans answered a call on his mobile phone, he found himself embroiled in a rescue over 4,000 miles away.
Alex was busy shopping in a local DIY store on Wednesday, when he took the call from Mark Corbett, a friend of Alex who had previously served on the Aberystwyth lifeboat as well.
“Alex, this is Mark: I’m on a ship in the Caribbean; we are taking in water and sinking; we’ve lost all power so can’t use the long-range radio; we’re too far from shore to use the VHF so I’m using the satellite phone, and yours is the only number I could remember off the top of my head. The ship’s name is the motor yacht Titanic.”
Alex’s first thought was that this was a premature April fools joke, but quickly realised from the tone of Mark’s voice that this was deadly serious. The training that Mark and Alex had received as members of the lifeboat crew came to the fore; Mark had the latitude and longitude of the ship’s position ready to pass to Alex, who wrote it down on his till receipt from the store, and that the ship was over 70m long, weighing nearly 1,700 tonnes, and there were three crew on board.
Alex rang HM Coastguard in Milford Haven and asked to be passed through to their Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Falmouth, which deals with all international incidents. He gave them the details of the position of the ship and the nature of their emergency before telling them the name of the vessel.
Thankfully, the coastguards didn’t hesitate for a second, acknowledging the accuracy and reliability of the source of the information, and told Alex that they would ring the satellite phone directly, and keep him updated of the situation.
Shortly afterwards, Alex received a second call from Mark too with an updated position, and told him that they had managed to slow the ingress of water, and that all three crew were currently safe. Alex told Mark that the details had been passed to HM Coastguard and to clear the line as they would be trying to ring him.
Alex again rang HM Coastguard to give them the updated position for the ship and was told that the co-ordinates indicated that the vessel was between a number of islands. A French rescue spotter-plane was being sent to the area, as well as a US Coastguard helicopter carrying a salvage pump, and a US Coastguard cutter to take the vessel under tow.
After returning to his home, Alex received a further call from Mark to tell him that Falmouth Coastguard had been keeping him updated of the actions that were on-going to rescue the ship and the spotter-plane could be heard flying overhead.
A commercial tug was later commissioned by the ship owners, which had taken over the tow from the Coastguard, and they were brought safely ashore.
