Man overboard...........!

23rd May 1982 - South Atlantic, fifty miles of the Falklands. It is late in the evening and dark. The seas, surprise, surprise, are rough. Difficult conditions to be transferring stores from ship to ship. Of course, that is precisely what we are doing.

We are doing this by sending our Sea-Rider ( a semi rigid small boat) loaded with stores between ships. we are offloading stores to an RFA ship.

This is particularly hazardous for a number of reasons; it is dark, the seas are very rough and to make matters worse, the RFA won't switch on his lights. He is scared that he could be bombed from above.

So, we launch the Sea-rider with a couple seamen on board with the stores. They make the trip across OK and offload to the RFA. It is during the trip back that things go pear shaped.

The Sea-rider is now alongside, we attach lines to enable us to winch the the boat and crew back on board. I am on one of the lines. In a moment, a large wave rolls over the boat and takes with it one of the seamen manning it. In seconds, he is swept aft into the stormy darkness.

Dressed correctly he might have some chance of survival. Unfortunately he is not wearing an immersion suit but, instead, he has on arctic clothing - basically a pair of padded trousers and a padded jacket, plus his life jacket. Keeps you fairly warm but is useless for surviving at sea. Dressed like he is, he should not survive for more that a few short minutes due to the temperature of the seas, combined with the distinct risk of drowning in the heavy swell.

I don't recall who was on duty on the bridge, but their response was immediate. The ship was brought around sharply, no mean feat in itself given the conditions. The seaman was captured and kept visible by a spotlight - again, pretty amazing. Within 15 minutes we had him back on board. That seems like a long time, but because of the conditions this was outstanding. Now, he could be in a bad state.

We got him, quickly, down to the sick bay to check him over. In these conditions, hypothermia can kill pretty rapidly. Amazingly, he was a little cold but not severely hypothermic as I had feared. He was re-heated, gently in a warm shower. He hadn't ingested too much sea water - so no problems there. The Skipper gave him a tot of rum, not a particularly good move, but it wouldn't harm him. Then he was back to duty - no harm done.

I asked him what went through his mind while he was in the water. He replied "Well, I just thought that I would either be picked up or I wouldn't". There's fatalism for you!

Age of this seaman - 17 years!