St Mary’s lifeboat races west after French yacht’s PLB alert

The mooring lines were still in the crew’s hands, the boat pointed for a routine training run out of the harbour, when a message over the VHF changed the shape of the evening.

A PLB, and 45 miles of open water

The crew of St Mary’s RNLI Lifeboat Station were about to drop the moorings for a planned navigation exercise on Wednesday 19 August when HM Coastguard called the lifeboat on the radio. A personal locator beacon, or PLB, had just triggered on a French yacht 45 nautical miles west of the Isles of Scilly.

The lifeboat accepted the tasking straight away and turned west, steaming at 18 to 20 knots into fresh westerly conditions.

A relay, a second yacht, and a check that mattered

The Coastguard put out a Mayday relay. It was picked up by another yacht already in the area, one that had been in contact with the French yacht earlier in the day. The two boats got in touch with each other, and it was confirmed that all was well aboard the vessel that had triggered the alert.

That was not quite the end of it. The Coastguard still needed the beacon’s own Hex code, the identifying string carried inside every PLB, to be completely sure the distress signal matched the yacht in question. It was passed back over the radio. It matched.

Stood down, 12 miles out

The RNLI lifeboat was 12 nautical miles west of St Mary’s when the Coastguard stood the tasking down. Crew for the shout, the 21st of the year for the station, were Jimmy Hoddinott, Chris Jenkins, Dan Moulson, Lee Sandford and Ben Jenkins.

What to do if a PLB goes off near you

PLBs are among the best pieces of safety kit a sailor can carry, but they are also easy to set off by accident. If you see or hear that one has activated, call the Coastguard and tell them, and they can confirm whether it was set off by mistake. They will ask for a 14-plus digit Hex code to cross-check it against the device that has gone off.

Always register a PLB to its owner or vessel, so whoever is holding it can be traced and contacted, and keep those details up to date. In this case, the beacon was registered to the yacht.

📷Credit: St Mary's RNLI Lifeboat Station