Atlantic Adventure News

17/8/2002

At about 9.15am (BST) on Tuesday a whale bumped along the hull of Pinball Wizard and then turned it's head into the propeller and rudder. All the crew were OK, but badly shaken. Some quotes from the crew were:

• It was like hitting a rock, we were stopped in our tracks (David C)

• My first thought was let's get to the Life Raft, David's was get the Grab Bag and the EPIRB (Gail)

They were motor sailing at the time and making good progress and were about 170 miles due West of Brest (France) and just starting the Bay of Biscay. The whale obviously hit the propeller hard as there was quite a lot of blood in the water, but it then flipped it's tail and went on it's way.

Pinball suffered damage to both the propeller and the rudder and lost use of both, however, thankfully, there appeared to be no water coming in to the boat, so no immediate danger to their safety. The engine was ok and able to charge the batteries, however when it was put in gear the propeller hit against something and couldn't be used to power the boat. The rudder only moved through 10 deg and had a tendency to steer them in a circle, it couldn't be used to steer the boat. A tanker happened to be close by, almost on a collision course, and David got in contact with us within a few minutes of the incident, via the tanker, so that I could inform the Falmouth Coast Guard. They then set-up a jury rudder using the Spinnaker pole, but this was giving very little steerage. 

At about noon they decided that they were in danger of collision as they approached nightfall with no ability to steer out of the way of other vessels. The winds were very light and they were effectively drifting, albeit in the right direction towards Brest. They contacted the Falmouth Coast Guard and asked for help in being towed towards land. This was passed to the French Coast Guard (MRCC) as the boat was within their area. The Coast Guard arranged for a 'French Navy Vessel' to go to the rescue, but made it clear there would be a charge for this. They couldn't/wouldn't state what the cost would be.

Discussions with our insurance company established that they were willing to cover the cost in principle but wanted to know how much it would be.

Once the French boat got out to PW, about 6.0pm, it turned out to be a commercial supply vessel on contract to the French Navy and they were acting in a purely commercial basis. They asked David if they had Insurance cover to cover the whole cost of the tow, even though they wouldn't say how much that would be. David said that he was not sure. The French skipper then said that if David was not sure about the insurance, then he would have to 'give over' the boat if he wanted a tow. David and crew decided to refuse the tow and carry on.

During the night they continued to sail/drift towards Brest at about 1 knot. They had a very scary event where they were on a collision course with a fishing vessel and couldn't get them on the radio. They eventually had to set off a flare to let the boat know they were in trouble and couldn't get out of the way. The fishing boat finally turned away, but it was close enough for them to be really worried. 

On Wednesday morning David decided that the safety of his crew was paramount and that he needed to try again to get assistance. He called me (David S) at 7.15am to get things moving. It the took an enormous number of phone calls between - the insurance company, Falmouth Coast Guard, MRCC in France, Lloyds and Pinball Wizard. Let's just say the French system is very different from the UK Coast Guards and the RNLI. It took until 3.0pm Wednesday afternoon to get to a position where we had sufficient paperwork sent to MRCC to get a Fishing boat to agree to go out and give PW a tow to port. 

At about 5.0pm the French fishing boat Sant Yan 2 started towing PW towards port at 6-8 knots in calm seas. It took about 17 hours to get to Le Guilvenic, which was the home port of the Fishing vessel. Just before the harbour entrance the tow was handed over to a French Lifeboat to complete the manouvre into port. It had a bad start by bumping in to the front of PW, but thankfully didn't do much damage. They were safely berthed about 10am on Thursday.

Thursday was a public holiday in that part of France, so there was nothing the crew could do but take advantage of the local hospitality, i.e. a few well deserved drinks.

On Friday the boat was towed to Loctudy, which has a large Marina and suitable facilities to get the boat out of the water and make repairs. It is expected that PW will be lifted out for inspection on Tuesday and a plan of action agreed.

We can expect many more details and suitable tales when the crew return to the UK, e.g. Gail said that the whale was at least 20 Metres and by Saturday it was likely to have been at least 25 Metres!!!

Follow the attached link to see the Quimper Telegraphe article, pictures from the trip and damage to the boat

10/8/2002

The Biscay crew have arrived ready for stage 2 of the adventure. David C, Gail, Richard and Mike are now on board.