When we reached the sailing yacht, it was rolling madly in the swell, with sails, sheets and halyards ripped to shreds and over the side, making our approach tricky. There were five people aboard, including two children. There should have been six, we found out, but one man had been washed overboard and had been missing for three and a half hours. The coastguards informed us that he had been found and rescued, miraculously (for he hadn't been wearing a lifejacket) by the helicopter crew from 35F Naval Squadron (that's the view from the helicopter). For once, the name of the boat had been providential, 'Serendipity'. He was lucky to be alive.
We got a line across to the yacht on the third pass, and began the long process of the tow back. Entry into the port, in a high wind, with big waves, and the yacht entangled with sails and rigging, was hairy. To help control the drift, we launched our inflatable into high seas, with waves breaking over our deck and the towrope, hot with tension and friction, flailing only a few inches above our heads.
Once we had secured the other vessel, recovered our inflatable, rewound (by hand) two hundred metres of towrope, and brought back our own boat to its berth and got it ready for the next shout, it was past eleven thirty. We began to disperse. No sooner had I got home for what was now a cold supper than the pager went off again. So once more to sea, this time twelve nautical miles out for another sailing yacht. The wind had by now changed direction, and we were no longer corkscrewing but pounding directly into the breaking crests of the waves. The water, as it came boiling over the boat, whiplashing noisily against the windscreens, was illuminated an unnatural shade of blue by our flashing police lights. It was the turn of another crewman (again not me) to be horribly sick over the side. It was so rough that I was assigned to hold on to him as he puked. As an experienced seafarer, I knew which side not to be on.
The passing of a line and the slow tow back were uneventful, if a little bit like being stuck on a roller coaster for hours. We were back in port at three on Sunday morning.
