Falmouth Coastguard kept busy.

Helicopter rescue crews braved treacherous seas and gale force winds to airlift an injured French fisherman from his ship to hospital. The French vessel was 20 miles north west of Land's End yesterday afternoon when the man gashed his hand. Winds of up to gale force nine were battering the ship making it difficult for RNAS helicopter crews to land a winch man on deck. It took an hour before he could be landed safely. Falmouth coastguards received a call for aid from coastguards in France at around 1.45pm. By 2.40pm helicopter crews were on scene. None of the ship's crew spoke English so Falmouth coastguards liaised with them through French colleagues.



Team Tom take to the liferaft:

At 7.54pm yesterday, Falmouth Coastguard received an alert from an emergency locator beacon in the Atlantic and coordinated the rescue of two rowers from a life raft.  Falmouth Coastguard received the alert from 480 miles south west of the Canary Islands from the UK registered beacon belonging to the Atlantic Challenge rowing boat PS Vita. The race organisers also confirmed that they had lost polling contact with PS Vita just after 7pm.

Falmouth Coastguard broadcast an alert to all vessels in the area but the nearest vessel which could provide assistance was the Bahamian registered cruise ship Crystal Serenity approximately 120 miles from the location of the alert.  The Crystal Serenity turned back and proceeded at speed through the night to the position and within seven miles of the position they spotted a red flare. Shortly afterwards at about 6am they located the two rowers in their life raft who were recovered on board the cruise ship.

The rowers are a Dutch and a British National. The PS Vita is a 7.3 metre ocean rowing vessel with two people onboard taking part in a Woodvale Trans-Atlantic challenge from the Canary Islands to Barbados. The two rowers are reported to be uninjured despite at least ten hours in their life raft. Conditions on scene were 25 knots wind with a three metre swell.


From inside the rowing boat the story went something like this.......


"Tom got out from the cabin, as I climbed in. We encouraged each other as usual for the shift that lay ahead. I turned to look at the GPS to see the milage I had row in the last 2 hours, as Tom put his leash on. Just as I went for the cabin hatch handle Tom Shouted "Shit Shit Shit" and a wall of water hit us, capsizing us immediately and flooding the Cabin. I managed to get out of the cabin, to find Tom holding on to the hull of the boat. Thank god he was leashed on and managed to hold on to the boat. The wave that hit us came at a 45 degree angle and was enormous, we were truly very unlucky."


Extracted from the guys Facebook page, Team Tom Atlantic Row - see here: