Andrew,
Thank you for your thoughts. I don't know the answer either, and like the rest of you, I would have stayed out (or just sailed to Porto where there is a huge harbor that probably would be safe to enter). My question was a mind teaser.
But
Portugal is not the only place it happens. Similar below, although here in
Australia:
Australian River Bar drama: Five people plucked from high seas off the coast of Ballina on the eastern Australian coastline early in the morning this week, including the crew of the town's
Marine Rescue boat, were lucky to have been found at all. This is according to the rescuing Jet
Boat spokesman Elton Cummings
Three of those people are now in Ballina Hospital after the
Marine Rescue boat capsized while trying to save the yacht, leaving them stuck on the vessel's
hull for about an hour while the other crew
member stayed in the air pocket.
The drama began about 1am when the Marine Rescue was called to help a vessel struggling to get across the river bar. The Marine Rescue crew tried twice to attach a tow-rope to the yacht, but each time the ropes got tangled in the vessel's propellers.
'Both boats were dragged out around the wall with the outgoing tide, and there was no time for the crew to do anything,' Marine Rescue NSW regional coordinator Stephen Reading told the local news outlet. 'They got hit by a couple of big waves and they were on the rocks.'
Mr Reading said the Marine Rescue crew and two crew from the stricken vessel were thrown into the
water when the rescue boat flipped over. One of the yacht crew were caught in the air pocket under the boat. The jet boat was then called out about 2am to rescue the two crews.
At that point, the seas were running at between two metres and three metres, making it difficult to spot the yacht, the marine rescue boat, which was, by then, about two kilometres off shore, or the flashing beacons on the crew members' life jackets.
'It was only luck we found them upside down,' Mr Cummings said.
There were concerns about the crew
member who remained under the boat and Mr Cummings said one of the Jet Boat crew was about to jump in the
water to find him 'when he just popped up'.
The five people were transferred to the jet boat but, with so many people aboard and conditions so rough, Jet Boat
skipper Mark Puglisi had decided they would not able to get safely back across the Ballina river bar.
A Life Saver Rescue Helicopter had also been called out, but was unable to
winch the rescued crew members to
safety in the rough conditions.
By then it was about 3am and some of the Marine Rescue crew were suffering hypothermia and showing signs of going into shock, so calls were flying to find another rescue boat that could take some of the rescued crew across the bar, or another helicopter that could
winch them out in the rough conditions.
'We called the Water Police, we called another Coast Guard station and they couldn't get through their own bar,' Mr Cummings said. 'No boats could get out, it (the sea) was just too big.'
Finally, about 4am,
skipper Mark Puglisi felt the rescued Marine Rescue crew could wait no longer and made the decision to run the jet boat ashore at Shelly Beach, where ambulance crews were waiting to take them away.
As for the yacht and the capsized Marine Rescue boat, both remain at sea and at time of writing neither had been seen.
Mr Reading said he believed that the Marine Rescue boat was upside-down and half-sunk off one of the beaches, and it was not known if it could be salvaged.
'Rescues in the dark and in bad conditions are always treacherous,' he said. 'Everyone is very shaken up.'
.................
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