‘ The boat was engulfed in f lames. We should be dead’
DANGER: The £269,000 Meridian and Paul Ward, with a badly bruised face BUSINESSMAN Paul Ward was riding on the crest of a wave when he picked up his new boat.
The sleek Meridian 341, a four-berth motor yacht with two state rooms and all mod cons, was every sailor’s dream.
That dream turned into a nightmare when just 15 minutes after picking up the £269,000 boat in Southampton, Paul, 61, and crew member John Innes were jumping for their lives as the yacht exploded beneath them.
As they shivered in a life raft on a freezing February day, they watched in horror as the blazing boat sank.
The pair were rescued by lifeboat and taken to Southampton General Hospital with serious burns.
Paul and his girlfriend Dawn Roads are now suing MGM Marine and Dun Laoghaire Yacht Services, the dealers they bought it from, in the High Court for over £300,000.
Shuddering as he re-lived the moment he and John thought they were going to die, Paul said: “It was touch and go. First, there was the explosion. Then the smoke and flames. If we hadn’t jumped clear just when we did we would have had it. I couldn’t believe how close we had come to death.
“Luckily we had the raft as neither of us, foolishly, had our lifejackets on because we were so close to the shore.”
They had cast off about 1pm on February 8, 2010, and the seven-hour trip back to Rye should have been plain sailing.
Paul said: “We plodded down The Hamble into Southampton Water, where I opened her up a bit with no problems.
“Everything was fine and I said to John, ‘Let’s have a cuppa, I’ll take her up to 16 knots’. But as I pushed the throttle forward, there was an odd noise and I turned to John and said, ‘The engine didn’t sound quite right’.”
Within a short time, the boat was alight. Paul continued: “I said to John ‘We are going to have to get off here quick’. By this time the whole of the bottom of the boat was in flames. Fortunately, I had taken the life raft from my old boat. I dragged the raft in its case behind me without realising I was blocking John’s escape route.
“I looked round and couldn’t see him and by now the whole boat was engulfed in flames. My heart sank. I went to look for him, anxiously shouting his name, and to my relief he answered, shouting back from the front of the boat.
“He had gone round the starboard side but he was in the wrong place because the life raft was at the back, so I told him to make his way back.
“But as he did so the cockpit canopy exploded, showering him with burning plastic, which set his jacket and hair alight. I started to beat out the globules of flame, burning my hands quite badly in the process.
“Finally I got him on to the bathing platform and as I got the raft out of the canister he was shouting to a nearby boat that we needed help but we got no response.
“I flung the raft into the water and pulled on the rope to inflate it but by this time the flames were at our backs and my jacket and hair caught fire.
“For 10 minutes we were drifting on the raft waiting for the lifeboat to pick us up and we watched the boat sink.”
Besides the cost of the boat, surveyors and consultants’ fees and forensic experts’ fees, Mr Ward will take further action for injury and psychiatric harm.
The coastguard said: “When we first saw the boat in flames from our air-sea rescue helicopter we were convinced nobody could have escaped alive. It is a miracle anyone survived.”
Mr John O’Kane, a director of MGM Boats, said yesterday: “At this stage we have absolutely no comment to make.”
‘I just couldn’t believe how close we had come to death’