During a diving expedition to the Clyde Estuary in Scotland, members of Westhoughton Sub Aqua Club rescued a yacht that had been disabled and was in danger of crashing onto the rocks. The yacht had been manoeuvring towards the floating pontoon jetty of The Scottish National Watersports Centre on Cumbrae Island when a length of nylon rope went over the side by accident. Before the engine could be turned off, the rope had completely wrapped itself around the propeller and rudder and disabled the vessel. Unable to use either the propeller or rudder the yacht was at the mercy of the wind and tide and were drifting out of control and heading to the rocky shore when they were spotted by the two power boats of Westhoughton Sub Aqua Club divers who were returning from a successful dive on the wreck of the ‘Lady Isabella’.
Diving Officer Ian Ellison said; “It was obvious that the yacht was in some kind of difficulty and instead of going straight into the harbour we quickly pulled alongside. Once we knew what had happened we used our 5.8 metre boat to tow and the 5.2 metre boat to push the yacht out of danger. When everyone was safely on the jetty and the yacht was securely tied up we got two of our divers kitted up and sent them down to check the damage”.
Divers John and Tom quickly reported that the rope had locked solidly around the prop and rudder and would have to be cut off. Ian made sure that the engine was off and that the keys were taken out of the ignition and safely stored away. The divers had said that a diver knife was not big enough to cut through the rope, so they were armed with the yacht crew’s bread knife and sent back down. In all it took four divers to completely remove the rope which had tightened around the propeller shaft so hard that it was like sawing a solid nylon block.
Diver Tom commented; “It was really hard work, John had cut off all the loose ends and made a start on the worst bit, but it was just solid and even though the knife was really sharp it took ages to cut through, and working underwater in full diving kit is exhausting”.
Diving Officer Ian Ellison knew that the divers would get tired soon and had stand-by divers kit up and get ready to take over after 20 minutes. “Even in shallow water that kind of work is surprisingly difficult, when you are fully immersed in water you are effectively weightless and so any work that requires applying force just tends to push you away, so you have to hold on and this means using twice as much effort”.
The second group of divers managed to clear the rest of the rope and after a quick inspection by Ian everyone was out of the water and the yacht crew gave the engine and rudder a test run, everything seemed to work fine and the yacht crew asked how much the club wanted paying for their help and were amazed when the divers said they would not take any payment.
Club Treasurer Simon Richards remarked, “Because we are an amateur sports club we cannot take payment for helping in this way, however the yacht crew did turn up at the bar in the Water Sports Centre later that evening and very generously bought everyone a few drinks”.
The yacht skipper who didn’t want to be named, said that he had been sailing in these waters for twenty years and this was the first time anything like this had happened to him, he also said that if the Westhoughton Sub Aqua divers had not turned up when they did his beautiful yacht would have been wrecked.
Equipment Officer, Stuart joked that if it had been wrecked, we would have dived on it later that afternoon.
Newly qualified divers James, Jon and Fran had their first wreck diving experiences on this trip and thought it was a fantastic weekend. Jon commented, “The whole weekend was brilliant , we’ve had dives on a world war two ‘Catalina’ flying boat wreck, two other shipwrecks and two fantastic scenic wildlife dives, and saw an amazing amount of sea-life including seals and a school of porpoise, rescued a yacht and as well as all that when we were out on the boats on Sunday a huge submarine went past on the surface!”
The Clyde Estuary is visited by Westhoughton Sub Aqua every year and is seen as a useful place to gently introduce newly qualified club members to diving in sea water on ship wrecks. The club has a number of fully qualified instructors and is actively seeking new members who want to learn to dive or who are already divers and want to improve their skills and experience or just go diving. If you would like to get involved or just find out more you can check out the club website www.westhoughtonsubaqua.com
or call along to the club meeting which is every Thursday evening, 8:00pm at Westhoughton Leisure Centre, next to Westhoughton High School, Bolton Road, Westhoughton.
