By Mal Butler
The memories came thick and fast, and there were plenty to chat about – 50 years of them.
At 1.08am on Sunday, September 14, 1975, a duty officer at the Needles Coastguard saw a red distress flare two to three miles to the west.
Yarmouth RNLI, under the command of Coxswain, Dave Kennett, and his crew Stuart Pimm, Keith Hopkins, Robert Cooke, Nicholas Chandler, Andries Postma, and Mark Rushton set off on a rescue mission which was to make national headlines.
They started in a force nine gale with driving rain hindering their visibility. At 1.47am, further flares were sighted to reveal the casualty yacht was drifting fast to the south.
As Dave and his crew made their way towards The Needles, the conditions deteriorated to force 10, with 25ft heavy sea swells, some waves filling the wheelhouse. At 2.12am the radar display onboard the lifeboat failed, following another crashing wave and then, at 2.56am, HMS Solent, a Royal Navy minesweeper reported sighting a flare seven miles to the south of her position and headed towards it. They found the Yarmouth lifeboat and remained in their company.
Finally, at 3.14am, they spotted the 28ft disabled sloop with a crew of five Metropolitan policemen. Dave decided it was too dangerous to use the breeches buoy, a rope based rescue device similar to a zip line, owing to conditions and the exhausted condition of the survivors.
He decided to move alongside the craft to pluck the survivors off, one by one. He moved the lifeboat next to the starboard side of the plunging yacht and maintained perfect position long enough to snatch the crew to safety.
And on Sunday, 50 years to that fateful day, Dave, and two of the three other members of the crew who are still living, met over a reunion lunch at the Royal Solent Yacht Club, Yarmouth, also inviting the IW Observer.
Keith and Stuart were able to attend, but Mark, who was just 17 at the time, is now captain of a superyacht in the Mediterranean.
The rescue earned Dave the Silver Medal of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, with the rest of the crew being awarded Medal Service Certificates. Dave was also named as one of 10 Emergency Services Men of the Year.
Dave said: “At that time, the lifeboat station was in the café on the corner of the quay, which was flooded and we had to wade through water to get in. We launched and suddenly the wind completely changed direction. The weather was frightening and we had to find them without radar – using just a compass, charts and local knowledge.”
Stuart said: “I remember it was bloody wet!” While Keith added: “I still think of it; in fact, I was awake last night as the clock clicked to 1.08am, the same time and the same day as we got the original callout, 50 years ago.”
Dave would later be awarded a Bronze Medal of Gallantry for another rescue, an MBE and an appearance on ‘This is Your Life’, as well as being invited to a ‘Night of 1,000 Lives’, a celebration of the people who had been awarded the ‘Big Red Book’.
The evening was presented by Michael Aspel and included some of the show’s famous subjects such as Twiggy, Barbara Windsor, Bob Monkhouse, Max Bygraves, Vera Lynn, Richard Todd, Nigel Havers and Charlton Heston.
But on Sunday, it was Dave handing out the awards, presenting specially-engraved plaques to both Keith and Stuart to mark the occasion.
Of course, there were plenty more stories during the afternoon, but what goes on at a RNLI lunch, stays at a RNLI lunch!
Isle of Wight Observer