At 17:25 on Friday 13th September 2019, Guernsey Coastguard received a call from the 32ft sailing vessel ‘Second Wind’ with two persons onboard, one of which was suffering from extreme sea sickness.
The vessel which was 4.2 nautical miles south west of St Martins point was struggling to make progress towards Guernsey due to her foresail being wrapped around her forestay and hanging in the water, the elderly skipper was unable to recover it himself.
At 17:47 the St Peter Port All Weather Lifeboat (ALB) ‘Spirit of Guernsey’ was launched to assist the casualty vessel and the Inshore Lifeboat (ILB) launched 5 minutes later at 17:52 to aid in transferring the sick crewmember if required.
Both Lifeboats arrived on scene at 18:02 and a lifeboat crew member was transferred to ‘Second Wind’ to assess the condition of the sick crewman and to assist the skipper in recovering his sail.
Once it was assessed that the sick crewman was in a stable condition the casualty vessel was escorted back to St Peter Port by the Lifeboats, arriving at the Harbour at 18:48.
Both Lifeboats were back on station by 19:00.