Recently there was a strange story in The Phuket News.
NAVY HELPS YACHT TO SAFETY
According to the article, the Royal Thai Navy has rescued a sailing vessel with a crew of two foreigners, an Italian and a South African, on the way from Langkawi to Phuket. The crew had called for help from turbulent seas in the middle of the night. They reported that their vessel was struggling in heavy waves.
The navy searched for the boat for two hours, and about six hours later the sailing vessel was towed safely to a port in Satul Province.
This article raises several questions, but I will address only a few. There is no mentioning of break-downs of the yacht or it’s equipment and no report of sickness aboard either. As far as I am aware, there was no horrible storm blowing at the time. The area in question (outside Satun province) is not an open ocean, on the contrary, the yacht was on a coastal passage, where there are several large islands along the way. Depending on the direction of the wind, it should have been possible to find relative shelter either behind the mainland or one of the islands. The waters are generally shallow all over and anchoring is possible almost anywhere.
Obviously it was pitch dark when the call was made, so maybe the problem had to do with navigation …
