04. 29th April - 2nd May 2011

Friday

With the Royal wedding creating another bank holiday, we ensured the vessel and lookout were on station in order for cover to be provided to any mariners who may require assistance.

With the wind and tide resulting in an almost becalmed weather and water state, we spent the day completing a navigation exercise and some preventative maintenance also.

Saturday

Crew ensured observations and first aid was provided in the country park, no incidents occurred that required our intervention.

Sunday

With an acceptable crew mix, we prepared for another day of course plotting and practical navigation exercises, with each crew member plotting a segment and then helming someone elses course.

This however did not occur, whilst heading to the launch site we were raised by Solent Coastguard to assist Stanswood Rescue with the recovery of a windsurfers sail that had been landed one nautical mile from the casualty.  Southampton mobile Delta was already on scene and we then proceeded to take a lifeguard, his kayak and the sail back to Stanswood Rescue HQ.  Securing the sail gave us a few issues but it was returned to it's owner.

Once all parties happy, we headed back off to begin our Nav Ex.....

Upon arriving at our starting position, after completing a crew change, we were hailed by Southampton Mobile to a vessel in the Beaulieu River that had collided with the bar that runs alongside the waterway, the vessel had suffered a dismast.

We were on scene within 1 minute and checked that no injuries had occurred and the vessel was not taking on water.  The crew of the casualty had sensibly steered back into deeper water and dropped anchor in order to assess damage and recover their snapped mast.

We stood off and provided them with a few bits heavy duty cutting equipment to aid their stowage.  This took in the region of 30-40 minutes, we stood off allowing the crew to rectify their own predicament and they did so.  Once all was satisfactorily on deck and all trailing lines were removed from the water, they began their voyage to Hamble.

Hamble Independent Lifeboat then also arrived on scene and shadowed the vessel, ensuring no further misfortune fell upon these mariners.Once released, we headed to Cowes to refuel and did some alongside training whilst there was a lull in the weather.

We returned to station with no further incidents reported in the Western Solent, we closed down at our designated time.