Rescue story
How a "man overboard" exercise resulted in a real rescue.
Our friend and Pantaenius customer, Lefteris Amoiralis, describes the incident that happened during a sailing lesson, when he and his crew were called to deal with a serious case of injury at sea.
Last sailing lesson, the weather in the Saronic region is sunny with 20 to 30 mph North winds and we are getting ready to do a “man overboard” exercise... one of the most difficult situations that can happen in any boat.
The crew prepares by theoretically hearing how they should react while sailing. At a random time, the human-simulating fender will drop and training will begin. Everyone is alert...until one of the boat's crew reports that a kid racing with laser boats is 600-700 meters away from the boat and is calling for help!!
The exercise stops, the captain takes over the helm and the boat and crew test their naval skills under real conditions. The crew quickly furl the genoa and immediately the boat tacks to furl the mainsail as well. We approach from the port side of the small boat and unfortunately the captain informs us that the kid has suffered a dislocated shoulder! We ask him how he would like us to help him, replying that he wishes us to tow him to the spot where the committee boat is. We prepare a rope and throw it to the kid to tie it to his boat. Unfortunately he realizes that one of his hands could not be used and with the other one it was impossible to tie the rope to his boat. We collect the rope, assure that we will not leave him alone, and decide to get close to the laser and loop the rope around his mast ourselves, in order to tow him. So we did, slowly starting to pull the Laser but soon our little captain shouts that his boat is going to capsize.... the strong wind pushing his sail combined with the dislocated shoulder left no room for control of his boat.
Time passed and wind pushed both boats towards the land. A brave decision had to be made…either the kid abandons the laser and joins us or we abandon the laser and move away because the wind was blowing us towards the shores, endangering our own boat and crew.
Finally, the captain of the Laser asks us to take him aboard. The decision is difficult and the execution even more difficult when you have to collect an injured person, who is in a small boat just a few centimeters from the surface of the sea strongly affected by its waves, and on the other hand you are in a 13 meter boat. So we decide to lower the stern platform and after a few minutes the boy is on deck with us. After that we offered first aid, we inform the authorities about our arrival time at the port so that an ambulance would be informed to pick up the injured.
…A few hours later we were informed that his raw is in place and there is no fracture!! Everyone was happy!!
A sailing lesson became a life lesson for all, proving that proper training and nautical knowledge, i.e. knowledge and skills, combined with the traditional sailors code of "ethics" in terms of their behavior to help one another when dealing with emergency situations, they are traditional values, synonymous with the Greek nautical culture.