Lymington to Poole and a (quite serious) Pan Pan call

Our plan to stay in Lymington for a few nights and then to hide up in Poole for the next bank holiday weekend involved a little hop across to there on the Thursday prior to the holiday kicking off. Naturally it had to be windy (still up to 30 knot gusts) but they were from the east initially so the waves were behind us pretty much. 

Just to add to the fun, it also meant that we were being pinned to the pontoon and our usual trick of pushing the nose into the pontoon then and backing out wasn't possible as we had been put into a "corner" on the Dan Bran pontoon. Thanks to the relatively powerful thrusters we escaped though, into a grey sea - as usual so far this year. We opted to go through the North Channel to get better shelter and it was so nice to escape the manic solent and see a plotter screen with very few other AIS targets on it as we crossed Christchurch bay:

A simple route, that got bumpier as we left the shelter of the land and the wind swung southerly, still pretty gusty too. That became important later on. For the benefit of the non boating folks, the strange "go south and then into Poole" bit is to avoid a shallow bank and follow the approach channel that the big guys use:

As we turned into that channel, the wind was pretty much astern of us again and the tide was still running out of the harbour. The wind over tide gave the harbour approach the usual (for here) set of short steep waves which our stabilisers were busy sorting out. They have a very short wavelength which makes it messy. Coming out of the harbour we saw a RIB called Seaweed III - strange name we thought. It was having a really hard time pushing into the wave pattern and had slowed to a crawl. Then it stopped just out of the channel and we heard a "Pan Pan" call to the coastguard from the guy on board. 

For the non boaters, a Pan Pan call is kind of one down from a Mayday. It means that the message is urgent but not life threatening, although when we heard the content we were not so sure. The man reported having fallen over backwards in a big wave whilst en route to a boat breakdown in Studland bay (he worked for SeaStart), having blood coming from the back of his head, blurred vision and being unable to steer the RIB back into Poole. Meanwhile, the RIB was still being thrown around. The coastguard took some details and we then responded, saying that we had visual contact with the RIB but that we could not go over to assist him as there was not enough depth. We were pretty shorthanded to manage a tow in such conditions anyway. Izzy is little help. At least we gave him the reassurance of having someone close by and could provide an accurate position to the coastguard.

A local RIB came out and started towing him back to the harbour - here is the course of "Seaweed III": The overland bit can be totally ignored!

First of all the harbour patrol RIB came out and added a blue flashing light but not much else to proceedings as there was only 1 person manning it:

The towing RIB reported that the casualty was drifting in and out of consciousness on his boat (still alone) and so the inshore lifeboat was a welcome sight:

as they put some crew on board and assessed the situation:

Then the other inshore lifeboat joined in and it all got a bit busy as you can see from the AIS plot:

The lifeboat crew took the casualty slowly through the harbour as they were worried about a possible spinal injury and when we arrived at the Quay Boat Haven, the paramedics were busy working on him. Luckily he was discharged from hospital with a serious headache and a scar later on.

It was good to see the quick response to the pan pan call from everyone. Even the Condor ferry tied up in port called the coastguard to offer to launch their fast rescue RIB. Still not a nice situation to witness though.

We were given an "interesting and tricky" berth that involved backing down to a dead end, passing two berthed Sea Scouts sail training yachts with the strengthening wind determined to mess it all up big time. Luckily that went OK under the watchful eye of many Sea Scouts, the lifeboat crews, the coastguard men, the marina staff, the paramedics, Sunseeker workers commissioning boats and folks gawping from the quayside. Izzy took the lot in her stride and just barked at anyone who dared to come too close to her boat.