19/11/2004

From Baltimore to Bombay

When RNLI volunteers hang up their yellow oilskins and return to the day-job they usually expect to leave lifesaving behind them until the next ‘shout’. Not so for Eoin Ryan, Navigator and Training Coordinator at Baltimore Lifeboat Station. His day-job takes him to the West Coast of India where he is Captain of an offshore supply vessel, the Waveney Castle.

On the morning of June 16th 2004 the livestock carrier MV Dorset, a 100m long vessel was sitting at anchor off Mumbai (Bombay) awaiting a tug to take her to the scrap-yards of Alang. While wrangling over the cost of chartering a tug the South West Monsoon winds arrived. She was having mechanical problems and was struck by another vessel while blacked out. Collision damage caused flooding in her forward spaces. On the morning of June 16th an inspection revealed cracking in the collision bulkhead and it was feared that progressive flooding of the entire single hold space was inevitable. At 0944 the MV Dorset was abandoned by its 8 crew. She sank immediately in about 20m of water.

As Captain Eoin Ryan recalls, ‘The Waveney Castle was hove to 15 miles off Mumbai Port waiting for a pilot. The wind was from the Southwest at 30 – 35 knots with a 4m swell running. At about 0900 some faint Mayday messages were heard but no position given. At 1030 a clear distress message from a hand-held VHF on Channel 16 was received giving a position 2.5 miles from the Waveney Castle. We responded immediately making best speed towards the reported position and informing the Port Radio of what we had heard and what actions we were taking. On arriving at the position nothing could be seen. We turned down wind and followed the potential drift of a life-raft in those conditions.

About 10 minutes later we saw some diesel on the water and felt we may be on the right track. A few minutes after that we got another call from the life-raft. They could see us and were about 1 mile on our port bow.

We sounded the general alarm and mustered our crew ready to recover casualties. After passing through further diesel and floating wreckage we found the raft upside down with 7 survivors on top. 1 man was injured but mobile. His shoulder was dislocated. The weather conditions were too severe to launch our rescue boat so we manoeuvred into the weather and brought the raft into our lee on the starboard bow at the pilot boarding door. All the survivors were brought on board safely and the raft cast adrift. The rescued Master, Capt Arora, reported one man, the Bosun, still missing. He was last seen wearing a lifejacket so there was hope he was still alive.

It was determined that a man in the water would drift more slowly than a liferaft so we searched slowly back up the trail of wreckage all the time conscious of the danger of colliding with the submerged wreck of the Dorset. Every available man was acting as lookouts and about 10 minutes later a lifejacket with a raised arm was sighted right ahead. We mustered again to follow the same procedure to recover this casualty. It proved more difficult without the raft as a boarding platform. He grabbed a life belt but at one point slipped out of his jacket and disappeared under the water. With both the vessels bow-thrusters running it was a worrying moment. Finally the traditional ‘bowline on the bight’ was employed to good effect and the Bosun of the Dorset was brought to safety. It felt great to complete the job. We must have passed quite close to this last survivor on our way to the raft and no matter how many were saved, had we not found him, we would always have wondered could more have been done to find the last man.

The survivors were all Indian Nationals. The vessel was registered in Wontan, North Korea. They were given ‘chai’ (the milky tea of India) and food and made comfortable. The injured party received first aid to strap and protect his injury until he could receive proper medical attention ashore. The crew of the Dorset disembarked at Mumbai at 1600 with many promises of prayers to the Hindu Gods on our behalf and there ended a busy but rewarding episode in the life of the Waveney Castle.’

During this rescue it was apparent that there was little support available from local Indian authorities. We must reflect on our good fortune in having comprehensive air and sea rescue resources on constant standby around our coasts.

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