Eye-witness account, photos and video of the Wightlink Yarmouth ferry incident

OnTheWight’s friends at the BBC South Today put us in touch with Ben Matthews, a professional yachtsman who had taken some great photos of Wightlink‘s Wight Sun ferry that had got into difficulties yesterday.

OnTheWight called him to find out what happened.

“An interesting departure from Lymington this morning”, is the way that Ben initially described the near-two hour journey when we first spoke to him about the incident.

“I realised there was something going wrong quite quickly,” he said. Happily Ben got his phone out quickly and captured these stills and video below.

“At the mercy of the wind”
As Ben described it to OnTheWight,

“The boat was under no power, drifting into the barge, in the Lymington River.
“Once we lost the front propulsion units, we were pretty much at the mercy of the wind, given that we only had the aft thrusters and were in quite an enclosed area of the river.
“Once we’d basically rested alongside of this barge – which is building a new breakwater – I don’t think the captain had a choice of resting alongside. The Captain then came on the PA and said we’re going to see if we can get someone to tow us off.”

Lymington Harbour Master to the rescue
Happily the Lymington Harbour Master came to the craft’s rescue with the (pretty small) launch – attempting (successfully) to tow the W-Class ferry off the barge.

“The wind was blowing us onto the barge and the Harbour Master effectively towed our bow around, so our bow was pointing straight into the wind, so they could use the aft thrusters, so they could thrust us off the barge.”
“They then towed us halfway in to the river.”

Ben went onto say,

“Once underway and crossing the Solent, the Captain said they would try and get the ferry alongside at Yarmouth, but they weren’t sure – based on the current weather conditions – if they’d be able to get the ferry out again.
“If that was the case, the implications for Wightlink was that they’d have to cancel every other crossing for the rest of the day.”

Captain “did a very good job”
Ben finished by telling OnTheWight,

“In the end, they did a very good job of getting us alongside, albeit very close to Yarmouth pier – I haven’t seen a manoeuvre like it coming into Yarmouth.
“There was some creative thinking on the Captain’s side. The wind was being quite helpful, blowing us onto the dock in Yarmouth.
“It was an interesting experience.”

Ben’s photos
Click on images to see images full screen