Radios, helicopters, MRCCs - they have all altered the face of modern Search and Rescue.

But there are things for which the lifeboat is still best, as two friends of yachting writer and television broadcaster Malcolm McKeag will testify. In and Woody are two chaps very much in what many think of as the traditional mould of the yachtsman - urbane, witty, difficult to rattle. This story is about them really, my own part merely peripheral.

It all began at one of the less glossy Cowes Week parties. 'We could do with a couple more for the Fastnet' said a somewhat outof- place Irv, in a noticeably cultured accent...

'There is,' I told the girlfriend a little while later, while throwing gear into a bag, 'absolutely nothing to worry about. I'm going on the biggest, fastest boat in the fleet, she's 85ft long, has ten tons of lead in her keel and is as safe as a house. I shall be back in Plymouth long before most of them have reached Land's End on the way out.' That bit, at least, turned out to be true.

Forty-eight hours later, Drum was doing what she was built to do best, taking the long seas off the Cornish coast with swooping grace, throwing the spray aside with casual ease, sending the foam hissing and sizzling along her lee rail. The breeze, which had been up to gale force in the night, had eased to the top end of Force 6, tough enough on the smaller boats but for a 'maxi' (the largest boats possible under the rule which governs ocean racing - Ed) next to perfect conditions.

It would have been utterly enjoyable had one been not quite so close to exhausted collapse. A maxi is no place for a casual pierjumper, they are disgustingly hard work. Changing a headsail can be a ten-man job, and reefing reminds you of those old movies of work aloft in the Roaring Forties - ten of you strung along the boom, clinging on with fingernails and needing only the ghost of Alan Villiers to start the commentary.

There are but two one-man jobs aboard a maxi, cook and helmsman. They had a cook, thanks, and as for steering there was evidently a long list of individuals with noticeably cultured accents waiting their turn - and I was at the end of it.

So the principal task of yours truly was ' grinding', toiling at the huge winches. I am here to tell you that grinding a maxi is no job for the faint-hearted. It is much less a job for a not entirely fit yachting writer more accustomed to hanging on the backstay proffering well-meant advice to the afterguard. It should come as no surprise to learn, therefore, that between tacks yours truly was doing some well-earned cat-napping up close to the weather rail.

The first reaction to the big bang was that someone rather further up the hierarchy could investigate it. The second reaction was that one really ought to take an interest oneself. It sounded like a big shackle falling from aloft - but a glance there showed nothing amiss.

It sounded as if we might have run aground, but a quick glance showed us too far from the coast for rock hopping, and the waves too regular for an offshore shoal.

It sounded as if we might have thumped something in the water, and I was just poking my head out over the rail to look for railway sleepers or a waterlogged container when the second bang came.

Realisation was instant. The sound was as unmistakable as it was unthinkable.

'Good God, the keel's fallen off!' The stunned thought was immediately followed by another, more rational piece of inner self-advice. 'Well for heaven's sake don't tell anyone, you'll never live it down.' ('I say,' I could already hear them whispering 'wouldn't go sailing with that McKeag fellow if I were you, positive scaremonger.

Do you know, he once told us the keel had fallen off. Can you believe it? ) Aft, Phil Holland, brother of the designer (now there's a happy coincidence for you) was frantically heaving on the wheel.

'What'shappening?'heyelledatWoody. 'What's happening?' Woody yelled at me.

'The keel's fallen off,' I said to Woody. 'The keel's fallen off,' Woody said to Phil.

'Well, aren't you going to check, or something? 'I thought. 7 mean, don't just take my word for it...' But there was no need to check. The big yacht rolled on her side and lay there, like a giant Laser capsized on a giant gravel pit. She rolled on, turning turtle. Pausing to help the lad beside me unclip his safety harness, I missed the chance to scramble up the revolving hull and had to jump for it. The water wasn't that cold.

Woody, crafty blighter, went out under the guardrails like a fox through a fence then trod the rotating hull like a lumberjack rolling a log. He finished up atop the upturned great white whale, king of the castle. He didn't even get his feet wet.

Most of us had joined him by the time the chopper appeared, swooping low off the top of the Cornish cliffs and clattering towards us like a big yellow crow. An off-duty coastguard, Mark One Eyeball glued to Mark One Binocular, had been idly watching us at the time and, eyebrows rocketing, had seen us capsize. Fortunately, he had a phone in his Land Rover. Fortunately, the keel had chosen to leave us at a spot just 13 minutes flying time from Culdrose.

The Falmouth lifeboat arrived just as the last of those who had been trapped below in the air-filled hull had been brought to safety, and soon there were 22 of us lined up along the hull, like seagulls waiting for dinner.

An orderly queue began to form, as the chopper hovered overhead, its sling dangling near the front of the queue and the lifeboatman, his voice hoarse against the clatter of the rotors, urged those at the back to get a move on.

The lifeboat, standing off, had sent in its rubber dinghy to ferry survivors.

Funny, isn't it, how little things bother you when all you should be worrying about is avoiding death by drowning. Most of us had been in a boat, but not many had had a ride in a helicopter. Now that the danger was past, this looked like too good an opportunity to pass up, so the poor lifeboatman was having a hard time getting takers.

'Come on then, I can take two more this run.' Only Irv was behind me, with Woody and Phil in front - we were the last four and the chopper could take two, the lifeboat two. Looked like I wasn't going to get my ride in a chopper after all.

'You going in the chopper Woody?' said Irv.

'Blow that,' said Woody, 'dry ship, those darned things. Doesn't the RNLI still carry brandy? I'm a survivor you know. I'm entitled.' I looked round for Irv, but it was too late. He was already sliding down the hull into the waiting dinghy….