HURRICANE CALL-OUT
The day Storm Ophelia struck the coast of Ireland in October 2017, is one that Coxswain Eamonn O’rourke will never forget:
‘The morning in question, our whole country was bracing itself. This storm had been well forecasted for a week or more. Ferries, trains, buses were cancelled, businesses were closed, employees told not to go out to work.
We’d been down to check the lifeboat and put extra rope on our own boats. I was on my way to see my aunt in hospital, before the storm hit, when I got a call to say there was a 10m yacht in a bit of bother up the coast.
I was a bit gobsmacked there was a yacht out there because if you looked on AIS there wasn’t anything moving around the coast. When the pagers went, because everyone was at home, we had some 26 crew members assembled. I picked a crew with decades of experience, which was a good start.
The storm was coming on so fast, within an hour, the wind had increased by 40-50mph. I’ve been at sea all my life but the speed of it really had us all by surprise. Conditions were horrendous. Within 30 minutes of us talking to the yacht, they’d gone seven miles up the coast. From the time we left it was 50-55 knots and I kept looking at the gauges and it just kept climbing.
One crewmember is night master on the ferries and he was keeping us updated with wind speeds. At one stage he got 79-80 knots (150mph or more).
When we arrived on scene, what we witnessed was a yacht out of control, it was at the mercy of the sea.
Later, Mark told me at one point he came down off the sea at 17 knots. They had a horrendous few hours at sea before we arrived. I circled them a few times which wasn’t easy. Taking the crew off was going to be a last resort because one or both boats would’ve been broken up. You couldn’t attempt to go alongside when they were out of control like that.
Our next plan was to pass a drogue to them, to stabilise them. With the second attempt of a heaving line, we got that on board and what a difference that made, it enabled us to make an approach and get a towline to them, which wasn’t easy. After a few attempts we got the heaving line to them and established the tow.
We were heading towards a dangerous patch of ground called the Rusk Channel so I had to make a decision then if we carry on with the wind, which would’ve been easier, or head into the eye of the storm.
This tow was just attached to two cleats and my fear was that if one or both of them came loose and we lost them in the banks, we’d never have been able to re-establish a tow, so we just had to go for it, turn around and hope the yacht would come through the waves behind us. Thank God it did. The eight-mile trip home took about three hours. We had to take our time, we didn’t want to lose the tow.
To me the lessons learned are that a passage plan is so important but within the passage plan you need ports of refuge; you never know at sea what’s going to happen. Mark had passed by Rosslare that morning, called up and got no response on the VHF. My advice to people is go in and get a safe haven. No one’s going to put you out in that weather. And don’t hesitate to call us, we can always turn back. It’s easier to look for a boat than to look for a liferaft, or people in the water, so never hesitate.’
Within 30 minutes of us talking to the yacht, they’d gone seven miles up the coast