WHEN A LIFEBOAT reaches a vessel in distress in gale or storm force winds she has come to the heart of her problem; how best the people on board may be brought safely to shore. Can she go alongside and take off the survivors. Or is there a better answer? Now is the time that leadership, experience and sheer seamanship crystallise into wisdom as the choice of approach is made.

Every rescue is different. No set of circumstances will ever be repeated.

This was the theme of a discussion held on the morning after the annual presentation of awards last May between Lt-Cdr Roy Portchmouth, staff inspector (operational developments, trials and sea training) and four coxswains who had been presented with medals for gallantry the previous day: Michael Grant of Selsey, Trevor England of Padstow, Kenneth Voice of Shoreham Harbour and T. H. 'Harry' Jones of Hoylake. All four coxswains had received their awards for services, described briefly below, during which, in extremely high winds and rough seas, they had had to try to bring their lifeboats alongside the casualty in an attempt to take off survivors or put crew members aboard. So that is where the discussion began.

* * * Coxswain Grant and Coxswain England had both launched to help a cargo ship which was listing in storm force winds, gusting up to violent storm and even hurricane force. Each was in command of a 48ft 6in Oakley lifeboat . . . .

Coxswain Michael Grant, Selsey: It is far more difficult to go alongside a big ship, like Cape Coast, in that sort of weather than anything else. If you have got a boat more or less your own size, perhaps with two or three people on board, you can usually run in and within a few minutes you have got them off, come astern and got away. With a ship, I like to keep at a bit of an angle so that not too much of my own boat is exposed to too much battering. I don't know about you, Trevor?Coxswain Trevor England, Padstow: Our problem was that at first a helicopter had started to lift off the crew of Skopelos Sky, so the men had gone to the after end where the deck was high and there were not so many obstructions for the winchman. It was the best vantage point for a helicopter lift, which was commonsense. The best place for us to take them off would have been in the waist of the ship, between the hatches, but waves were washing right over the decks amidships and it would have been impossible for the men to stand there. If they could have stood there we could have gone in, as Mike says, bringing the bluff of the bow in about a third of the way along the vessel. They could possibly have jumped and we may have stood a chance of taking them off. But from the height of the after deck it was impossible.

We were coming up to a curved stern and also running into the after cut-up and it was very hard just to keep station on the extreme after end of the ship. Skopelos Sky was making about five knots. When her stern went up into the sea we were facing the boss of her propeller, and the propeller was some 20 foot away from our bow; but when she came down and we were looking at the crew at eye level, we were just inches away from the end of the ship.Grant: Cape Coast was an old ship.

The bridge and accommodation were amidships and her lowest part was her stern. They lowered a pilot ladder over the ship, towards the starboard quarter.

I went in with the port bow well fendered to see what would happen.

We got there and within two seconds we were away again, astern. So I sent a radio message to the skipper and said we could get them off. Then we went in again, steadily. You can't go in too slowly because you lose steerage way.

We just put the bow in, with engines full ahead, and tried to hold her there.

We got knocked away two or three times, but, mostly, it seemed to work.

The 48ft 6in Oakleys are very heavy boats for their size, aren't they? and they are pretty steady in the water. It takes a biggish sea to knock them away.

Coxswain Harry Jones, Hoylake: I have been alongside ships and pilot boats hundreds of times and we find that the drag of the big boat herself tends to hold you in.

England: We found that the seas were so big that, putting men forward, we had a chance of Skopelos Sky's canoeshaped stern coming down and hitting the lads. When she did eventually hit us, the men on the foredeck looked aft at us at the wheelhouse and didn't know whether to freeze or run. The only way we could manoeuvre was full ahead and full astern. It wasn't until later on, when we were talking between ourselves waiting for the helicopter to lift the rest of the crew off, that the lad who was on the radio in the after end of the wheelhouse said, 'What were you trying to do? Rip the gearboxes out?' Back near the tunnels he could hear her going full ahead, full astern, all the time. Until he said that I hadn't really noticed that that was what I was doing.

But you had to do that to try to hold the boat in any position to let the survivors get off.

Grant: I put the mechanic on the throttles because it gave me more scope to use the wheel and he said afterwards that he reckoned there must have been 150 different moves of the throttles in the half hour we were taking them off.

He was really giving the gears a terrible time. Full ahead, full astern, just to keep the boat on the foot-wide ladder.

Lt-Cdr Roy Portchmouth; staff inspector: How would you have felt if you had been going alongside a small vessel as opposed to a big one in the same sort of seas? Grant: It would have been a different world. I have been out on two or three roughish services to small boats and really haven't had any problems because you could get in and away so quickly. If you are alongside a big ship it doesn't matter which way you go, either ahead or astern, it still takes time to get away. But with small craft, a few seconds and you are clear.

England: With a big ship there is so much ship to pass . . .

Coxswain Kenneth Voice, Shoreham Harbour: When I am going in to a big ship, what is going through my mind is, how can I protect my lifeboat? But if I am going in to a yacht, it is how I can protect the yacht? To me, that is the basic difference between the two jobs.

Jones: Nine times out ten the big fellows are in deeper seas while yachts are usually closer in where the seas are generally shorter. The sea behaviour is different and there has to be two different drills. Going alongside a big fellow you can hold her there a bit better.

With a yacht you cannot hold her there in the same way. You don't get any shelter at all from a yacht because you are bigger than she is. You have got to have a very fast, nimble crew when you are dealing with small boats.

Portchmouth: If you have to tow you have probably got to put a crew member aboard to secure the tow . . .

England: That is the most important thing, because on so many small boats there is really nowhere to secure a line.

Put it on a cleat and it just pulls out.

Jones: The old type of wooden boats had big sampson posts, but modern yachts, which are designed to moor in harbours and marinas, have no strong point for towing.

Voice: I try not to waste time. You have got a call to go to the assistance of a yacht. You know that she has fired a flare but you really do not know, half the time, what is the matter with her.

You don't know if she has got a hole in her, or if she has got no steerage; you don't know if the crew are all sick; you don't know the position. We think that the right thing to do first is to get a man aboard with a line, even if we are going to have to take the people off and leave the boat. And we don't waste time passing the line, because you don't know who you are passing it to. I am not paying any disrespect, but you don't know.

The skipper can be a very good seaman, but he could have been seasick for 12 hours and he is not the same man. But I know the calibre of Joe this or Fred that, and can say, 'Right, getaboard and put a rope round the mast straight away'. So for us, it is a man aboard, line round the mast and you have got him. Sometimes you don't even have to manoeuvre the boat to come back alongside to take someone off; you can pull the boats together if need be.

Portchmouth: And your crew member has probably done it before a few times . . .

Voice: Oh yes. You have got to put a good man on board and, if it is possible, put a younger man with him and then he can literally learn the ropes.

England: You can't always say take a turn round the mast. One yacht we had to tow from the 1979 Fastnet Race had been over three or four times and her mast was wobbling. It was only stepped on deck, so the chances were we would have pulled that one out. Once the mast has gone, where do you make a tow fast? Voice: I am always wary of cleats on the foredeck. Many, many times, with a day cabin cruiser, it's get a loop right round the back of the coachroof. Get a hold on something fairly substantial somewhere and you can make your adjustments afterwards.

The services to Athina B and Truganini had been in shallow water, the one in surf, the other over sandbanks. What difference did that make in handling the lifeboats? Voice: Athina B was in the heaviest surf I have ever experienced and anyone connected with the sea knows that once you get into surf your boat acts quite differently. The surf is full of air and the props are not gripping. You can't steer the same and you haven't the same power. You are in the lap of the gods, make no mistake about it.

Jones: In surf you have got a movement which is going, say, from offshore to the mainland. On a sandbank, the sea is hitting the bank and being bumped up into the air. The water is more confused.

It tends to throw the boat around a lot more. In surf we find that you can run along parallel with the shore, but on a bank you can come at the casualty from any angle and as long as you have got just enough water under you, you can get away with it. But you are sucking the bottom all the time and your boat will not manoeuvre anywhere near as well as she would in deeper water.

Voice: Any boat will smell the bottom before you can. The wheel just goes like a load of jelly in your hands, doesn't it? You can feel it. You don't have to look at the echo sounder.

Portchmouth: We have more or less concluded, I think, that if you can tow a small vessel it is often preferable to trying to get people off and that if you have to go alongside a small boat it is not usually an enormous problem. On the other hand, with a large vessel you have a got a pretty well guaranteed problem. Do you have any thoughts, starting with you, Mike, on any special procedures which you would recommended as standard? Or indeed have you any thoughts on any new methods or equipment in the lifeboats which would help in solving this problem? Grant: Going alongside a large ship in a storm is always going to be a problem. I did prefer the old fashioned rope fenders, for fendering up. We still carry about four aboard. We put those over the bow before approaching Cape Coast and they were still there when the new fenders were blowing. We did cut through them in the end. Cape Coast was an old ship and you can imagine tearing up the side of a ship with a load of rivets sticking out; it was going to do a lot of damage. Cape Coast rolled down on top of us at one stage, when we had got round pretty well broadside on to her. She came down and it was a bit frightening, at the time. In fact she bent our whip aerials.

We went full astern and away for another attempt. That is why I always try to keep at an angle so that when you come full astern you know you are actually going away from the vessel.

Voice: I do exactly the same thing, just put the shoulder of the boat in, to protect my propellers and rudder. You are no good to anyone unless you have steerage on the boat. Apart from that, the least wood you have got touching metal the better.

Portchmouth: Do you feel that you could do with a lot more power under those conditions? Grant: Well, it may depend on the boat, but no, I don't think so. I don't think all the power in the world is going to keep you in that position against a ship when a mountainous sea comes along. Cape Coast was riding at anchor, head to sea. So there was no lee. The sea was sweeping along both sides. We have got some 200 horsepower in the 48ft 6in Oakley but I don't think 2,000 horsepower would have kept you in that position when a sea like that actually hit you.

Voice: I would connect power with manoeuvrability. A 42ft Watson's horsepower is not great, but her propellers are right and she has got a lot of power. You have got yourself a little tug there; you have got the power but it is slow to build.

Portchmouth: It is not instant power.

Voice: No. What you want is not so much the power as the instant power.

On this service i ««,,, board shoulder of the lifeboat against the port side of the ship. That was the attitude I was trying to lay, but sometimes a nasty sea creeps in between the lifeboat and the ship and puts your head out. Now, what I would have liked would have been extra power from the port engine, to throw the bow in.

Portchmouth: That is, of course, the enormous advantage the fast afloat boats have. Every coxswain of a FAB will tell you that. There is no comparison.

Jones: Going back to services to small boats, our biggest difficulty was power.

We certainly had not got the power with the 37ft Oakley—we had a relief lifeboat on station when we went out to Truganini—to tow the catamaran head to sea. Besides, I do not think it is advisable, once you have picked the casualty up, to tow her head into sea.

Nine times out of ten you will smash her up. Once we had got the towing warp aboard, I found it was better to pay off to port and gradually try to tow her across the sea until the sea came on our starboard shoulder, to ease the work that the lifeboat was doing. Then we could tow her. And another thing: if a yacht has been anchored and you slip the anchor warp, it is advisable to get away from that area as quickly as you can; with modern cordage of man-made fibres, you have got to watch your props. You want the power for manoeuvrability, not for speed. Power in some of the smaller boats, if anything, could be a disadvantage. We find in shallow water that if you open up your engines too much you tend to squat, and this is when the trouble starts. You have got to have a coxswain with a great deal of experience to know just when he can use the power.

Portchmouth: It is manoeuvrability rather than speed we are thinking about in this context. Any thoughts on that, Trevor? England: Yes. There was one time when we had the throttles right back but even then we couldn't get away from Skopelos Sky. Now, I do not know whether she was coming towards us at the same time as we were going astern or not, but we couldn't get away from her. She was coming down on top of us and it didn't seem as though anything was happening. I didn't look over the side to see whether we were going astern or not because my eyes were just glued to that lump of steel coming down on top of us and the three blokes up on deck who were looking back at you with frightened looks saying, ' Well, are you doing what you are supposed to be doing back there?' Because they are relying on you. We didn't seem to move at all, not for seconds.

Then all of sudden we cameapart . . . But I will say, the amount of times I shifted that wheel, I don't think I could have stayed at it for so long if it had not been power assisted. And I didn't want to put that wheel in anyone else's hands, not that day. I'm not being big headed now, but that was it: me and the wheel were one.

Jones: I think in the Rother the steering is hard. I'm pretty tough, but if I have been out in her for four or five hours, manoeuvring in shallow water, when I come back I know about it.

England: And the closer the throttles are to the wheel, the better.

Jones: I should hate to go back to the days when you had two mechanics working the throttles. It is the time lag.

When you are working the throttles yourself, you unconsciously use your engines without even knowing you are doing it. It just comes to you like someone walking along the road.

Voice: I don't like steering and I know the lads like to have a go; but when you get bad conditions, in my opinion, it is the coxswain's job to be on the wheel.

You are the one who has got to make the decisions and you have got to react very quickly. As Harry says, you are going through the movements and you don't even know you have done them.

You cannot give those sort of orders.

England: That is why I like to have the throttles close and be able to use them myself. It is all very well having someone there to help you. You have still got to relay what you are thinking.

Jones: The coxswain has got to be there.

Grant: I don't think I would ever hand over the boat, when the weather is like that.

Portchmouth: When the chips are really down you want to take her.

Voice: At the same time, it is part of the coxswain's job to get his crew to do everything, whenever possible.

England: Oh yes, and there is nothing now that could happen at Padstow without our crew taking that boat out to sea, and they are going to do a first class job.

Conversation turned to drogues . . .

Jones: When you were running did you have your drogue out at all? England: That morning, when we went out to Skopelos Sky, it was the first time we have ever had to ease the boat down in any sea. In a gale of wind, as you know, Mike, that boat is like a tug, she just steams on and nothing really stops her. She will fall into a trough and I have only ever heard her engines shudder once.

Jones: Well, things are different in different areas. Our station boat is a 37ft 6in Rother. She is a fine boat and we cannot find a fault with her, but we have got to ease her down in a big following sea and we have got to have the drogue out. But we work, sometimes, in as little as nine feet of water. We come in from the Bar Lightship, on the edge of the 12 fathom line. Now if you have to get straight in to the shore, where a lot of casualties are, you are often in nine feet of water and the bottom is as flat as this table. We may have to run five, six miles before a north-westerly gale. We have got to work the drogue. You couldn't manoeuvre without it.

England: We would use a drogue in those conditions, but the sea we were in that morning was big and it was on the bluff of the bow. We had to ease her back and head into every sea we encountered. Normally we just say, 'Hang on boys, we'll shoulder this one.' But that morning it was every sea we came to. Then we got to a position from where we had to run down to the casualty, and all we knew about her was that she was out of command.

Rather than waste any time, I asked the chaps to fender up on the bluff of the starboard bow, and they told me afterwards that as they were kneeling on the deck tying on the fenders, the feeling of acceleration as they were going down a sea was like being on a Mallabu board.

They said the speed was terrific.

Jones: It wants some believing, but when we have been running with a north-westerly gale we reckon that the Rother and 37ft Oakleys have touched 20 knots. The engines have literally been howling and that is when we put the drogue out. I can almost feel the boat tending to screw round.

Voice: I always put the drogue out once I feel that I am beginning to lose control.

The only way you can steer a boat in these conditions is through your rudder and you have got to have way on. If the stern is sticking out of the water, then that's it; you cannot steer.

And the only way you can counteract that, certainly with our 42ft Watson, is to stream the drogue.

Grant: I like to have the drogue out in good time, because running before a sea is the worst thing there is.

England: We did have a short run, maybe three quarters or half a mile long; we wouldn't have had time to put the drogue out and get it in again. By the time the lads had got those fenders all up on one side, we were there. Then we found that the coaster had done a complete turn and was heading the other way. So I had to tell the lads, fenders all the other side. Then one of the lads in his quickness to try and get a fender fixed, lost it overboard. So I say 'Now we'll go and pick it up'. And he says, 'What's this, then, a man overboard drill?' I thought it was just as well to see if we could pick up a man from the water in those conditions, if necessary. So we went round and picked the fender up. No bother at all.

If someone had jumped overboard from the casualty, we could have picked him up.

Voice: It's the crew who are up on the open deck. I am full of praise for my crew. We have been given an award, but I never forget, and I am sure none of you do, that it takes seven or eight chaps to pull off what we did on the boat. You don't do it on your own.

Although the coxswain has got the initial responsibility it is only if everybody is doing his job right that the service is a success . . .

England: I would endorse every word Ken says about the crews, and would add the importance of the work of the recovery crews of the boats when we get back . . .

Jones: This is something we all realise.

It is team work and we could not do a job without them, right down the line . . .

Grant: That's right . . .

Voice: . . . and my lads were utterly exposed. Now, a lot of people have said to me, 'When you were alongside, did your crew have lifelines on?' The answer was no, not when they were actually taking the survivors off the boat. I was going to put the starboard shoulder of the lifeboat alongside, so, going in, I had all the crew on the port side. Directly you are holding some sort of station your men have got to go forward and get the people off. You cannot tie on properly, because with bods falling on top of one another lines are a nuisance. There is an old saying, 'One hand for the boat and one for you'. But you cannot take people off a heaving deck with one hand. You have got to have two and you have got to let go. On a lifeboat, if lifelines are made fast to the guardrail you cannot move more than three or four feet because you are checked by the stanchions. I would like to see on lifeboats a single chain, or wire, going from stem to stern so that a man can hook on and he can go forward and move about freely and safely. And if he should fall over you are not going to lose him.

Portchmouth: If he was secured to a central line, fore and aft, he could duck under that. He could start off on the port side and cross under it to starboard still with his lifeline secure.

Jones: We only use the lifelines today for putting the drogue over the side orsomething very abnormal. Otherwise we do not use them. You are just too restricted.

Grant: The only time we ever use them is if crew members are going down on the scrambling net to pick somebody out of the water.

Portchmouth: We are putting fore and aft lifelines along the sides of the superstructures of the fast afloat boats. From what you have said, we ought also to think of a central lifeline down across the fo'c'sle.

Grant: It would give you about 20 foot of scope, wouldn't it, at least? Portchmouth: A very valuable point. I think we are all more or less agreed that in bad conditions it can be pretty difficult thing to get alongside a large vessel.

In those circumstances, what do you think about the philosophy of getting the crew to abandon ship first and then retrieving them either from liferafts or from the water itself? Grant: The crew of Cape Coast had inflated their liferafts but the commander of the frigate which was standing by, a top notch fellow, told them on no account to get into those liferafts. I don't know whether they had thrown them into the water or inflated them on deck; all I can tell you is that when we got there the liferafts, and they were 12-men liferafts, were flying around the rigging.

Jones: If a casualty is close to the shore, the crew could be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I presume the liferafts would be made fast to the ship? Portchmouth: We must assume that.

Jones: What if the painter parts? It's Bob's your uncle then, isn't it? If the casualty is offshore, then they could probably abandon ship. But in the Liverpool Bay area, where I am, you would have them on the beach within minutes.

England: Towards the end of the afternoon Skopelos Sky had anchored but she was dragging and we were faced with the situation where the ship was closing on a lee shore and we were fast running out of water; you could feel the heave coming. Your neck begins to go a little clammy. The helicopter had taken off three of the five men left on board. The he came in and picked up a fourth man—and went. And we thought 'Has he made a mistake? Doesn't he know there is a fifth man there?' Then another helicopter appeared and he had to send down somebody who hadn't been down before. The boat was now in complete darkness and light had gone and she seemed to be closing faster. And it was getting to the point where we could not go in without anchoring and veering down on top of her.

Jones: Well, if he had put his liferaft out then, he would have been in lumber, wouldn't he? England: It was too late. But at the last minute the helicopter did take the man off.

Portchmouth: It would certainly have been too late to use the liferaft then, but further out it might not have been.

England: Earlier on that morning, with plenty of daylight, as I said earlier, we picked up that fender with no trouble at all. If they had jumped on the clearer side of the ship with the propeller going ahead, then we could easily have picked them up.

Jones: As you say, with tons of water, room to manoeuvre and time to pick them up, then perhaps you can advise them to abandon ship. But not in shallow water.

Grant: It must be easier for somebody to get into a liferaft from a yacht than from the deck of a ship, which is perhaps 20, 30 feet up in the air.

Voice: I think we would possibly all agree, especially when talking about smaller boats, that the time to leave the boat is when your navel starts getting wet and not before. Stick with it. A lifeboat is low in the water and you have got much more chance of seeing a boat, even if she is half submerged, than you have somebody in the water whether he is in a dinghy or just in the water with a lifejacket on. If, with larger ships, you come to a situation where you feel you cannot get the crew off for some reason, you should forget the liferaft and ask the men to jump in groups tied together, ideally in groups of four or five. If they are tied together you are not going to lose anyone; if you have got one, you have got the rest.

But if they are dotted around all over the place, you have got manoeuvring problems and it is all too easy to lose sight of someone.

Portchmouth: One of the first rules for survivors is, stay together.

Voice: And being together, talking, singing, even swearing together, helps to keep up the will to stay alive and be rescued.

Can a breeches buoy be used from a lifeboat in extreme weather? Voice: There are no rules. I did consider the breeches buoy with Athina B because there was no way I could go alongside on the seaward side and at first, in the dark, I was not sure whether there was enough room for us to go between the ship and the shore.

The Coastguard did try to get a line across from the shore, but it was too far. In heavy seas a breeches buoy has got a lot of problems. It is going to be a rough, cold journey for the men, getting them back, and if you have got a lot of rope in the water, it is floating on top and a hazard to your props. For me, on my patch, it is a last resort.

England: I don't think we could have used a breeches buoy. If we had put a bloke in the breeches buoy and the two vessels had come together and parted in those conditions, he would have gone up in the sky.

Grant: I can see occasions where it is the only possible thing. From what you say, Harry, your bit of ground is a bit like mine. I can get out and stand up six miles off. We have got four feet of water. If anything drives in on that, in any heavy swell, there is no way you can get the lifeboat in. What else could you do but attempt the breeches buoy? Voice: We have been fortunate enough to have been given a little inflatable dinghy which we carry on board, so we can veer that down for that type of job.

Portchmouth: Do you like the idea of the inflatable in lieu of the breeches buoy? Jones: Yes, we use an inflatable.

Portchmouth: What method do you use to secure it to the endless whip? Jones: We think of it as a shopping bag and tie it right round.

Portchmouth: You parcel it up? You put the line right round the whole boat, both ways, and secure it fore and aft, with one end of the veering line on the stern and the other end on the bow? You use it exactly like a breeches buoy? Jones: Yes. But it is much bigger than the breeches buoy and the wind tends to help you a lot. And we find we do not get the same twist in the water. We use an inflatable dinghy in this way with our sailing club rescue launch more than with the lifeboat. We have got some cliffs close to us; if a dinghy goes on the cliffs, you cannot take the big club launch into the surf, so we use the inflatable dinghy. Basically, it is a good way of getting a line down wind.

Portchmouth: I presume you would put one of your own crew in it? Voice: Certainly. Possibly two.

Portchmouth: There is one aspect of survivor recovery on which I would like your views, and that is the means (Continued on page 125).