BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub

Subject: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:06 PM

What a lovely story, and who knows if the boat will wash ashore near some likely pub in the UK? This is going to be songworthy before it's over.

Atlantic sailor sends mayday to his local pub.
The Times Online (UK) ^ | January 14, 2008 | Ben Quinn

Posted on 01/14/2008 12:50:33 PM PST by FrPR

A British yachtsman thousands of miles from home and seriously injured during a solo transatlantic voyage managed to summon help from an unlikely but familiar source: his local pub.

Alan Thompson, 61, an experienced sailor, broke his pelvis while sailing 600 miles northeast of Bermuda on Saturday.

He was in severe pain and hardly able to move but he managed to use his satellite phone to call the Bull's Head in Fishbourne, West Sussex.

Roger Pocock, 62, the licensee and a friend of Mr Thompson, immediately alerted Falmouth coastguards, who located the yacht and organised a rescue operation by the US coastguard.

Within hours two coastguards were airlifted aboard the 37ft yacht Padolu to help her owner to abandon the vessel and climb aboard an oil tanker that had responded to a mayday alert.

(snip)

Mr Pocock said: "We received a call from him, saying he was in trouble. He said he'd been on deck and taken a fall. I don't know why he didn't put out an SOS, but maybe he didn't want to make a big alert."

The yachtsman, from Chichester, in West Sussex, had just bought the Hunter Legend yacht from a Florida dealer and set off to sail her back to Britain alone. He had crossed the Atlantic on two previous occasions, but with a crew and 20 years ago.

(snip)

"We told him he would have to come off and it would be the last he would see of the boat, which isn't insured. Now he's back on his way to the USA and I'm afraid the yacht has been abandoned."

Mr Thompson had paid about $33,000 (£16,866) for the secondhand racing sailboat. It sleeps six people, has a full-length settee and U-shaped kitchen-diner in the salon. "He was talking on the phone to us, you could tell he was in agony," the spokesman said. "He was upset at the fact he was going to have to leave it [the yacht] as you can imagine, after just paying out all that money.

"We put it to him – you have to come off, we can't get you treated on board. In the end he agreed it was the best course of action. It would break my heart. He was gutted but I think he knew that was it."

(snip)

Padolu will either sink or the prevailing winds and current will take her back to America. If she hits the Gulf Stream she could even end up somewhere off the British Isles, the Coastguard said.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Amos
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:24 PM

I look for her to come bobbing back to his own shoreline looking for him. That would be a helluva story, eh?


Good on the pub for being so responsive.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: gnu
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:42 PM

Sniff. Would it were such a story, A.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:10 AM

Does that legally make the yacht the property of anybody who can board her?

What a great story! Always have useful numbers in your memory or on your speed-dial!

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:15 AM

Poor ol' Padolu!

Well, this old ballad might make a framework for a new song:

Original words and music by Henry Clay Work. (1884)

The Ship That Never Returned

On a summer's day, when the wave was rippled
By the softest gentlest breeze,
Did a ship not sail, with a cargo laden
For a port beyond the seas;
There were sweet farewells -- there were loving signals,
While a form was yet discern'd;
Though they know it not, 'twas a solemn parting,
For the ship -- she never return'd.

Chorus:

Did she never return? She never return'd --
Her fate it is yet unlearn'd;
Tho' for years and years there were fond ones watching,
Yet the ship -- she never return'd.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Mr Happy
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:26 AM

........or 'up the creek without a Padolu?'

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:38 AM

arrrg im in pun pain.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Grab
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:57 AM

Shame he didn't have some kind of transponder on there, so he (or someone else) could trace where it was afterwards. With everything battened down, she should stay afloat for ages.

Having said that, single-handed sailing with no backup is a seriously dangerous business. Even two-handed sailing can be a problem if one gets in trouble and the other has to take over, because not all boats are designed to be operated easily by a single person.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:58 AM

Puts me in mind of the Octavia. She wandered the ocean for thirteen years before being found with her crew frozen in the decks and on the rigging. The first ship to make the North West Passage - unfortuantely, by accident and with a dead crew.
Check out Hissyfit's CD.

"Soft eerie light on the water..."

I hope that if his boat is found it is returned to him. Anyone know her name?

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 06:34 PM

Salvage rights go to who ever finds it. It's not likely that he'll get it back unless he buys of the salvager. Once abandoned, it's up for grabs.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 07:57 PM

Sinsull-

The name of the sailboat is Padolu.

I don't find that an exciting name to rhyme.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:22 PM

"Padolu"


Hmmm... you'll do...

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 10:29 PM

Nope....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Schantieman
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 10:47 AM

What I don't get is why he used his mobile 'phone rather than the VHF/HF/MF radio that he ought to have had on board for exactly such an eventuality. And I agree that his EPIRB should have been activated to help the SAR bods find him.

Quite right - as long as it doesn't get hit by a storm or ship, the boat should continue to float more or less indefinitely. Salvage rights to somebody. Let's hope it's another yottie and not a shipping company!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 02:01 PM

Broken pelvis, barely able to move and probably in shock. He is lucky he had the mobile phone handy.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Padre
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:11 PM

Like any good sailor, he knew that he could always find his friends in a pub!

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: GUEST,Neovo
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 08:32 AM

I'm very pleased this all ended relatively happily. Nobody got killed and he can always get another boat. But before somebody reminds us that he wasn't insured so maybe he can't get another boat I would like to add that maybe this one of the indications that he could perhaps have been slightly better prepared for the journey. I only cruise the UK inland waterways by narrowboat but my mobile (cell phone) has programmed into it British Waterways offices, out of hours mobiles, lock keepers and their mobiles, emergency helplines etc etc - oh and my local pub as well!

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 08:37 AM

Mostly likely the injured sailor did have other numbers in his satellite phone index but the pub was the only one that responded to his emergency call. No doubt the other emergency responders were playing video games, taking a snooze, or posting to Mudcat.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 09:25 AM

Relater (lesser) experience:

I arrived one crazy-busy day at our favorite music shop, an hour from home over hill and mountain, to realize I was driving on fumes and had forgotten my wallet. No way was I going to make it home without gas! Hardi, I knew, was nowhere to be found that day and if he had been around, would not have had 2 hours to bail me out.

So I asked the store owner if I could store-charge $5 for gas cash. After he and the repair dude got done laughing their asses off and ribbing me about it, they were happy to do it and asked, did I need more?

We still laugh about that one, but if you can't get help from your music pals, what are they there for?!?!?!?!?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: EBarnacle
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 12:16 AM

...ASnd one poor man set sail commander on a sip that never returned.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 Mar 12 - 10:50 AM

Does anyone know what eventually did happen to the Padolu? I googled a bit but found nothing beyond that date itself.

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Mar 12 - 03:02 AM

There was a report of a boat that had been abandoned "several years" earlier that came ashore; but I don't have sufficient recollection to connect it to this one.

The one recovered was in rather poor condition, and probably not amenable to being restored to seaworthiness. Recollection is that the original owner was contacted and declined to attempt to get it back(?).

Memory suggests that the report was only a month or two ago, but at my age it seems I was recently remembering things that happened in February as if they were only a couple of weeks ago.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Mar 12 - 07:09 AM

I believe the derelict I saw the recent report on, mentioned above, was This One.

As the skipper on this one was just on a local fishing trip it's obviously not the one cited in the beginning of the thread, but it does give some idea of what kind of shape a drifter might be in after a few years.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Greg B
Date: 11 Mar 12 - 09:32 PM

The vessel is probably at the bottom. They likely left the companion hatch open when they abandoned her, full in the knowledge that the North Atlantic in winter would have done the rest to remove her as a hazard to navigation.

Alternatively, one of the rescuing merchant vessel's crew might have alerted a comrade on another merchant vessel, which could have come along and hoisted the "salvage" aboard, whence it would have quietly disappeared into some officer's "retirement plans."

Subject: RE: BS: Sailor sends SOS to his pub
From: Gurney
Date: 12 Mar 12 - 06:41 PM

A similar sort of story just happened here. A lone hiker in the NZ mountains damaged his leg, and there was no cellphone reception. He was carrying an old emergency beacon from when he lived in Britain, and he activated it. It had NOT been updated for New Zealand, but the authority notified his sister in Wales! She told them where he now lived, with phone #s, and in less than two hours he had assistance.
A lesson for all adventurers.