… in the pub tonight and who should we sit with but Pat. Now pa is a most interesting and lovely fellow, he always has a good story to tell, and I so knowledgeable about things and ha led such an interesting life it is always nice to be in his company.
He was telling s about the time, about ten years ago when he was sailing trimaran from somewhere back to Weston. He hit an unknown object with one of the outside hulls and before he knew it, the hull began to fill with water and the boat tipped up. He sent a Mayday, and loosed off a flair… unfortunate;y, as the boat was tipping, the flare he was holing also tipped and ripped burning phosphorous onto his hand. he went into the sea, life-jacket on.
I asked him if he was worried or afraid, but he said no, he was only about ten miles off Weston, the coastguard had responded, and he had a tracker on his life jacket… Good heaven, I think I might have been a bit worried! It was September, he told me and the sea was warm.
Twenty-four minutes later the lifeboat arrived, took him on board and within five minutes he was in the lifeboat house with a cup of tea. Coincidentally, my husband who was in the coastguards at the time, had been alerted to the incident, and subsequently he knew the other half of the story. Pat’s trimaran had hit a container which had fallen from a ship and was floating just below the surface.
Lois Elsden 