LIFEBOATS CALLED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32253, 23 March 1970, Page 1

LIFEBOATS CALLED

The two Sumner lifeboats Rescue II and Rescue 111, were called out yesterday afternoon after a Mayday distress call was received about a launch thought to be drifting at the Lyttelton heads. It was not until Rescue II had reached the heads from Sumner and Rescue 111 was more than half-way there from Lyttelton with the pilot launch Wairangi that the signal tower radioed that the launch was safely tied at its moorings and had been no further than the moles at the entrance to the inner harbour. Shortly before 1.30 p.m.

the Lyttelton police were informed that a Mayday call had been received from the 30ft pleasure launch, Karen, and that the launch was in difficulties at the heads. It was later found that the Karen had broken down outside the moles and sent out the call, which had not been cancelled after the Karen was towed by another vessel to its moorings. The secretary of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution (Mr W. J. Baguley) said that apart from the launch being at the moles, five miles and a haff from where it was reported to be in difficulties, it was a breach of

radio regulations not to cancel a Mayday call once the danger no longer existed. “A Mayday call is a priority signal and all rescue services are immediately alerted. If a Mayday call is to be cancelled, the ship which first sent the Mayday radios its cancellation and waits for an acknowledgement. This was not done,” he said. “From the point of view of an exercise, however, we appreciated the call. It showed that we could get over the hill and have Rescue 111 In the water at Lyttelton within a quarter of an hour of getting the call here at Sumner,” he said.