Couple on stricken yacht tell of lucky escape

A BRITISH couple whose stricken yacht was towed into Valentia, Co Kerry, late on Saturday night after being damaged in Atlantic storms yesterday described themselves as the “lucky ones”.

Steve Davis, 47, and his wife, Maria, 42, said that they knew of four boats which had sunk and of at least six people who had drowned.

“Global warming is causing chaos. It’s mayhem out there in the Atlantic. Storms are appearing where they should not be.

“Every day, we’d been getting messages about craft being in difficulty and about 150 yachts have been in trouble.

“One has disappeared without trace off Bermuda. We regard ourselves as the lucky ones,” said Mr Davis.

The London couple’s food and water supplies were also running out, with just enough food — mainly tins of sardines — for a few days.

They left the West Indies, on April 11, in a 38ft steelcutter, Imaraguen, which they had bought in the Americas, bound for Falmouth.

However, the Imaraguen was hit by severe storms two weeks ago, north of the Azores. Its engine broke down, the electricity generator was also lost and the main sail was damaged.

Mr Davis, a sailor of 20 years’ experience, said the yacht rolled in the storm and the mast dipped into the water.

“We used our sails to get to the [English] channel, but the wind would not let us into the channel and instead blew us slowly northwards towards Ireland,” he said.

They used a hand-held VHF radio to try to alert the emergency services and their signal was picked up by an Air Corps plane on routine patrol along the west coast on Saturday.

The coastguard was alerted at 11am on Saturday. Valentia lifeboat, under coxswain Seanie Murphy, immediately put to sea and rendezvoused with the Imaraguen at 2.15pm, 95km off the coast.

The lifeboat took the yacht in tow and was back in Valentia by midnight.

Sea conditions were quite good with a force four easterly wind, but the towing operation slowed the homeward journey at six or seven knots, according to Coxwain Murphy.

The couple were none the worse for their experience yesterday, as they relaxed on the pier at Valentia.

They plan to spend a week in the south Kerry area while their yacht is being repaired.

They heaped praised on the lifeboat for carrying out the 13-hour rescue operation.

“We didn’t expect the lifeboat to come out and tow us. The crew were great. We’d been apprehensive about further bad weather which is on the way,” said Mr Davis.

Meanwhile, four people were rescued off west Cork yesterday afternoon after their 28ft pleasure boat experienced technical difficulties 2km off Woodpoint in Courtmacsherry harbour.

The four were uninjured and were towed to harbour by lifeboat.