A very sobering day

Current location:  Kinsale Harbour

Places visited since last post:  Porthcressa Bay and St Mary's Harbour, Scilly Isles. Crosshaven and Oysterhaven, Ireland.

Life goes on happily aboard the good ship Snow Goose.  Eloise has really got the hang of life aboard, and speaks in full sailing lingo now.  She can be heard to say, "Daddy, I'm just going on deck to help Mummy service the winch because it's too full of yucky grease," or more appropriately this afternoon as we contemplated a walk ashore, "Mummy, hopefully it will be raining when we get ashore, and then we can just go to the pub!".  At the end of our glorious week in the Scillies, we parted unceremoniously with our old, broken outboard engine (plus a few hundred quid) and are now the happy owners or a brand new, smaller, lighter and more reliable beast.  A bolt fell out of the bottom of the old one, followed by the drive shaft which fractured, and it would have been a long old row if it hadn't happened near some sailing friends who towed us back to our boat...

We had a wonderful crossing from St Mary's Harbour in the Scillies, to Crosshaven, on the Cork Estuary, which took us 29 hours in total.  We managed to sail by day, but the wind died overnight and we were forced to motor, which rather spoiled the beauty of the moonlit night.  Eloise was sick a fair few times en route, but as ever she seemed unaware she was feeling sick until the "dirty cough" reared its ugly head, which was particularly unfortunate for Angus when he was lying on the bunk next to her reading her a story, but quite amusing for me from the safety of the cockpit.  Luckily there was a great launderette in Crosshaven and the lady there was only too delighted to lighten my wallet by 15 euros in return for a bag of washing...

The Irish have well and truly lived up to their reputation of being friendly, generous and welcoming.  Within hours of our arrival, Angus had chatted up a lifeboat man who was doing lifejacket checks, and secured the loan of his private mooring when we head further west, as well as his business card, with instructions to "Call me, if you have any questions at all about anything while you're here..".  We have joined the "Gathering Cruise" which is an organised group of boats headed west along the coast with planned meet ups at various points.  We have met lots of wonderful people through this, many of whom are local to the places we are visiting.  Last night we stayed in a beautiful inlet called Oysterhaven, where there was a BBQ laid on for us.  We showed up, complete with our two-year-old in tow, and realised that not only is she the only child on the cruise, but in not having grey hair yet, we too are in the minority.  No matter, Eloise saw her opportunity and settled down with some surrogate grandparents, encouraging them to help with her colouring.  Then the media team showed up, who were very youthful, and she had the playing football with her within minutes.  After an hour or so, she had a microphone attached to her dress and was being interviewed about her trip.  I think she lost them slightly in the story of how elephanty went for a swim from the dinghy and Grandpa Speedboat caught him...  The media team, who are making a documentary for the nautical channel (?!) we're so taken by her that they were going to come on board and film her in her cabin today.  I even gave it a really good tidy up and arranged her teddies, pictures and flags this morning in preparation, but then Eloise was overtaken by a much bigger story which unfolded before our eyes today.

A Dutch registered training Tall Ship, Astrid, was anchored last night in Oysterhaven and her crew joined us at the Gathering Cruise BBQ.  The trainees were teenagers from all over the world.  She led our flotilla this morning, out of Oysterhaven, bound for Kinsale, just 5 miles west around the coast.  It was blowing force 5-6 and was rough.  Tragically, Astrid never made it to Kinsale.  Her engine failed and she had left herself no sea room to save herself.  She could not sail out of her situation, and none of us little yachts could do anything to help her.  A Mayday was sent out to the coastguard requesting air and sea assistance.  Within frighteningly few minutes she was up against a sheer cliff, pounding against the rocks. It was clear she was going to sink, but not at all clear what would be the fate of her thirty crew.  Although there were eight yachts with her in the flotilla, there was nothing at all that any of us could do to help; for any of us to go in close enough to try take casualties off her would render us the next addition to the emergency.  One of the other yachts led the primary radio communications with Astrid, from on deck via his handheld VHF radio.  A handheld signal does not transmit far, so Angus took charge of the "Mayday relay" to Cork Coastguard using our main VHF from down below, whilst I held us on station, near enough the scene to see it, but far enough that if our engine failed too, we would not join it.  Eloise was a complete superstar and, at our request, lay silently in her bunk for the whole hour or so that followed.

It was the Kinsale inshore lifeboat crew who were the heroes of the day.  Even they, in their powerful RIB with their incredible boat handling skills, could not get near enough to Astrid to pluck people from her decks.  Having somehow transferred a lifeboat crewmember on to the stricken vessel, they helped the Dutch skipper to launch a 25 man liferaft, and transfer 12 crew into it.  The inshore lifeboat managed to tow the liferaft out to a yacht standing-by, and transferred all 12 safely aboard.   The liferaft was then returned to Astrid, and the remaining 18 crew got in.  The inshore lifeboat again began slowly, slowly to tow the raft out clear of the rocks and the ship.  At this moment, at least 40 minutes into the Mayday, the Courtmacsherry all-weather lifeboat arrived on scene, as well as the cliff rescue team and a helicopter.  As the 18 crew from the liferaft were helped aboard the all-weather lifeboat, Astrid gave up her unequal struggle, listed to 45 degrees, and her decks finally sank beneath the waves.  It was a tragic sight.

Kinsale is awash with press.  The 25 man liferaft is still sitting on the main slipway, cordoned off.  Shops and local people provided hot food, clothes and shoes for the survivors, who were rescued in just their soaking clothes.  Everything else went down with the shop.  The bar of Kinsale Yacht Club was full of blankets and bags of wet clothes.  The community has fed and housed the shipwrecked crew who lost all their paperwork, and many of whom need emergency passports before they can fly home.  It is a tragedy that such a beautiful, irreplaceable ship was lost today, and as ever there are many lessons to be learned.  It is a credit to the bravery and skill of the RNLI team that all 30 crew are safe and well; without their skills there would undoubtedly have been lives lost.  It was one of the most humbling and terrifying reminders of the power of the sea, and the danger of a lee shore, and one that I hope we will never witness again.  Eloise was upset by the sinking of the "pirate ship" on the rocks.  She has a pirate book with this song;

"Lil steered the pirate ship all on her own,
Round the raggedy rocks, the wicked whirlpool, safely home."

She keeps saying, "Poor pirate ship.  They needed Lil to steer it.  Perhaps Lil was steering the lifeboat?  All the people were rescued in the liferaft.  Poor pirate ship...."

What a day.  Sorry for excessively long post.  Google "Astrid kinsale" if you want to see some video footage.

Adios amigos, lots of love, Laura, Angus, Eloise and slowly enlarging bump..