Two French crew on their yacht have been escorted safely into Cowes after broadcasting a Mayday when one crew member fell overboard, off the Needles.
Solent Coastguard received the Mayday broadcast from the sailing yacht Bridailly at 3:34pm, the broadcast was in French. Solent Coastguard scrambled the coastguard rescue helicopter from and requested the launch of the Yarmouth RNLI lifeboat. The vessel and crew were located in the Hurst Narrows (Needles) and escorted into Cowes.
Steven Mann at Solent Coastguard said: “We needed to ask the caller questions so we called on our counterparts in France at MRCC Joburg to help with the language barrier. We connected our radios to the French phone system to enable our colleagues to communicate directly with the casualty vessel using the needles channel 16 aerial.
“We found out that there were two people aboard the 10.6 metre Jeanneau sailing yacht, one of which had fallen in the water with his lifejacket on and was fortunately connected to a lifeline, he had been recovered to the boat but had hit his head.
“The crew on board the yacht were wearing the appropriate safety equipment and raised the alarm by broadcasting a Mayday, coupled with the assistance given by the French Coastguard it all helped to bring about a quick and successful conclusion to this incident.
“I am pleased to say that no medical assistance was required.”
Image: Ashley Balsam Baz under CC BY 2.0
