Manuel du Pilote de la Méditerranée by L.S. Baudin 1840 newly annotated
24 April 2016
Petit Navire
2 May 2016
In the middle of the night, CROSS Méditerranée (Centre régional opérationnel de surveillance et de sauvetage) rescued two sailboats in difficulty off Ile du Levant. The operation was made particularly difficult by the weather conditions.
A difficult rescue of three sailboats
It was 1.20 am on Saturday night when distress flares were simultaneously seen by the liner Costa Diadema and the semaphores at Cap Camarat and Dramont.
A Corsica Linea vessel on the Île-Rousse-Marseille route was rerouted to try to contact the sailboat in difficulty. Unidentified, it did not respond to VHF calls.
At the same time, CrossMed receives a call from a person on land, reporting the difficulties of two of his friends, aboard two different sailboats (one 6 meters, the other 9 meters), off Ile du Levant.
Weather conditions were very difficult in the area, with winds of 65 km/h and waves of 2.5 metres.
CrossMed then managed to establish telephone contact with the two skippers, who were distraught, ill and visibly inexperienced, and unable to position themselves.
Cross Méditerannée calls in the all-weather boats from the SNSM stations in Hyères and Saint-Tropez, as well as the French Navy’s Dauphin helicopter based in Hyères. He managed to locate the first sailboat at 3.45 am and the second at 4.07 am.
The two yachts were finally brought back to port, one at 7:29 am in Cavalaire, the other at 10:35 am in Saint-Tropez.
Source Var Matin
Further west, the SNSM of Bandol (83) had to intervene to rescue a drifting 12-meter sailboat that was about to run aground in the Port-d’Alon area.
Weather conditions were rough, with a force 8 to 9 mistral wind and heavy seas.
Two divers had to be lowered into the water to pass the trailer to the sailboat for towing to the port of Bandol.
Conclusion
Commander Yann Bizien has squared the circle:
“Safety at sea is an ongoing challenge for everyone. Everyone has a duty to their own safety, to the safety of others and to their own rescue. Rescuers take risks for the benefit of those they save. This was the case last night, off the coast of Ile du Levant. It is therefore important to learn to abandon a sea trip when all the attributes of safety are not present. Imprudence, improvisation, inattention, carelessness, ignorance, routine, naivety and overconfidence are the worst enemies of safety at sea…”
