A shipwrecked sailor

The early morning sunshine was already warm enough for short sleeves and as I waited for the kettle to boil I climbed out into the cockpit of my 25ft gaffer Betty II to witness an RNLI inshore RIB passing by. I didn’t envy the two lifeboatmen trussed up in full foulies, welly boots and crash helmets as they motored into the landing stage. They must have been sweltering. There was a third figure aboard wearing just a polo shirt and jockey cap.

After tea my crew, Nigel Manning, and I rowed ashore to indulge in a hotel breakfast. The lifeboat was now coming away from the pontoon minus its passenger. ‘Morning,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Have you got lifejackets on board?’ came the businesslike response. Irritated, I said: ‘No’ perhaps foolishly, but it irked me that on a flat calm morning in a safe harbour a mission statement should come before the pleasantries of the day’s first footing. He wagged his finger in disapproval and sped off. Yes, of course I have lifejackets on board. And they are deployed when, in my opinion – reached after

55 years of sailing – they are needed.

At the pontoon Nigel and I discovered that the man in the polo shirt and jockey cap was pensioner, Colin Matthews. A man who had sailed all his life, starting as a child in a sea-scout troop. His confidence was shaken and over breakfast, he relayed his story.

He had gone into a well-known deep water anchorage, Sharfleet Creek, off the River Medway in Kent, to spend the last night of his solo cruise aboard Lady Louise, his Cornish Crabber before heading back to his berth in nearby Hoo.

Early that morning, on the ebb, he discovered Lady Louise was adrift and quickly paid out more anchor rode before discovering that her stern had touched on a submarine shoal. The ebb ran in whirlpools, as it does in that narrow mud gulley, and his boat was pinned to the side of this shoal as the spring tide quickly dropped. Colin then found his boat pitching bow first at a 45-degree angle down the side of what was appearing as a muddy knoll. Then she started going over on her port side as well causing him to scramble up onto the starboard rail armed only with his mobile phone. Fearing Lady Louise would capsize, he called the Coastguard who asked him to give them the boat’s Lat and Long, something Colin could not do as he could not access his nav station, now a dead drop eight foot below him.

Colin gave his location which the Coastguard thought was in Essex. When Colin corrected him the Coastguard said he would check it on a chart. ‘It was a bit disconcerting that they thought I was on the wrong side of the estuary,’ Colin said. But eventually the Coastguard managed to locate Lady Louise and a lifeboat was despatched, Colin was taken off and landed in Queenborough where he was told to find a launch with a salvage pump.

That, I believed, was totally unnecessary as I reassured our mariner in distress over bacon and eggs. ‘Nigel and I will take you back and have a look,’ I said.

We did so and found Lady Louise at an alarming angle [see pictures in Cruising News], but, having run out his anchor rode to its bitter end via our dinghy, then landed on the mud atoll with Colin, as the tide returned, all three of us got our shoulders under Lady Louise’s starboard quarter and succeeded in sliding her back afloat.

The whole operation took no more than 45 minutes. Colin was very grateful to the lifeboat for rescuing him, but a little perturbed at the ‘after care’. If he had taken notice of the RNLI crew he would have been landed with a huge salvage bill.

No-one would ever question the dedication of our magnificent lifeboatmen. But instructors at the Poole training centre might wish to teach some basic lessons in seamanship beyond the dogma of life-vest adornment.

The ebb ran in whirlpools, his boat pitching bow-first at a 45-degree angle