Porthcawl RNLI volunteers were paged last Saturday night to a mayday distress call. A yacht was drifting onto the Nash sandbank and was hit by large breaking waves.
Swansea Coastguard received a mayday call from a yacht that had left Cardiff barrage earlier in the day. The young crew of the yacht bound for Llanelli were unsure of their position, were experiencing engine failure, and were being pounded by breaking waves.
With the assistance of the directional finding equipment on Porthcawl RNLI lifeboat which was turned on at the station, they were able to get a rough idea of the yachts position.
The lifeboat was launched to search in the Porthcawl area. The RNLI volunteers searched the sandbank, again using the direction finding equipment and eventually the yacht was located. The RNLI crew were put onboard the yacht to assess the situation and discovered that one of the young crew was suffering badly from sea sickness.
The boat was towed back to Porthcawl harbour where the crew of the yacht were met by local Coastguards and Paramedics.
Carl Evans Helm of the Porthcawl RNLI lifeboat says:
‘This was a challenging incident, which tested the skill of the crew to the maximum. All crew worked well together to rescue the yacht, which by the time we located them was in a well known dangerous area just to the north of Nash Sands. The boat had put out their anchor just at the right time, which prevented them drifting onto the cliffs at Southerndown.’
This incident highlights the necessity for all boat owners to carry VHF radios, flares, lifejackets and charts. If the boat did not have a radio, there would have been a possibility that no one would have known they were in danger, and the lifeboat would have taken much longer searching for them. Sea safety information can be obtained from the RNLI’s website rnli.org.uk/seasafety
