Lone yachtsman adrift near North Sea gas platform

[Nick]

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82 years old, refusing to be rescued apparently. I've seen the boat around.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-n ... d-34462061

[Orla]

Had to laugh when I read this "The Alwyn North platform did not go to muster and no plans were made for evacuation."
He looks remarkably young for 82.
Wonder what they have done to his boat, Bergen maybe?

[Nick]

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Looks like the Noggies managed to tow his boat under . . .

[pagoda]

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Looks like the Noggies managed to tow his boat under . . .

Inept towing sounds like the problem. If you close all the hatches and the washboards are in ... how ignorant does the guy in charge of a tow have to be?

Pretty sad. I don't understand why there was a problem with the platform. 7 or 8 tons of drifting yacht would do no harm to anything. I have yet to hear what his mechanical problem was???

[Orla]

Great shame the noggies managed to loose the guys boat, does sound pretty incompetent.

Platforms have procedures for dealing with vessels getting close to the 500, I think they would have realised early on that the small yacht was no danger to the platform, but I guess the beeb like to dramatise news.

I thought I read he lost his steering?

[claymore]

Perhaps in sinking his boat they would be dealing with the problem of having an old guy endangering their precious rig?
Maybe he suggested they might....
Long live the conspiracy theorists

[marisca]

I think the criticism of the Noggie coastguard is a tad unfair. Over on TOP (aye, I till go there but never the lounge!) they produced the AIS trace showing ~5kts and linked to the man's Beeb interview where he certainly didn't apportion blame.

[wully]

It wasn't gas platform last time I was there...but the chef was French and the food superb.