6 June 2005 - FIVE local men were saved in a dramatic rescue after their boat struck rocks in the early hours of Saturday. John Vaudin, 37, and four friends spent 45 minutes clinging to the drifting, sinking 28ft Whisky Asset off the north coast of Sark.

‘I would like to thank the lifeboat crew and emergency services for doing a wonderful job and saving us,’ said a relieved Mr Vaudin later on Saturday.

‘It was a frightening situation but everybody kept their cool and we all kept together. We kept up our morale by having regular roll calls. Luckily everything went very well and the crew were very calm and did as instructed,’ he said.

The marine engineer and his four Guernsey friends had gone to Sark the previous evening to listen to live Irish music at Fitz’s Restaurant.

After leaving at about 11.30pm, they walked down to Maseline Harbour which they left shortly after midnight, all wearing lifejackets.

‘We were heading for Bec du Nez when I hit the Pecheresse rock with the stern of the boat. We were going about 15 knots and there was a crash. It was the out-drives that hit.

‘The boat began taking in water immediately and we started sinking,’ said Mr Vaudin, who instantly called St Peter Port Radio.

‘We held ourselves together and clung to the wreck until the lifeboat arrived ‘ I was signalling to it with a torch,’ he said.

‘The rock we hit was on the east side of Sark and the tide brought us round to the north and then the west ‘ we probably travelled about a mile and were clinging on to the guard rails with our feet and hands.’

The £25,000 vessel, which he had owned for nearly six years, was destroyed.

‘She was my pride and joy but we are all OK and in one piece and that is the most important thing. Being out there picking up wreckage this morning really hit home,’ he said.

His shocked crew, aged 45, 25, 23 and 21, were relieved to be alive.

All five casualties needed hospital treatment for hypothermia, with the 21-year-old also injuring his nose.

St Peter Port signal station received a call shortly after 1am that the boat with five people on board had struck rocks and required immediate assistance.

The lifeboat Spirit of Guernsey and Channel Islands Air Search were both scrambled and the former’s crew quickly found the vessel awash, with the five men in the water.

‘It was a trouble-free rescue. We had a good position on them and they were geared up quite well. It made our lives easier. We put a line to them and lifted them onto the boat,’ said lifeboat coxswain John Bougourd.

‘It’s a pity rescues are not all that straightforward. Had the boat sunk, it would have been a different kettle of fish ‘ she was up to her cabin in water and was all but submerged,’ he said.

He believed that the Whisky Asset crew had placed a rubber inflatable inside the boat to help it stay buoyant until the lifeboat found them south-west of the Bec du Nez in pitch black.

‘It could have been minutes or all night before she went down,’ said Mr Bougourd, who was in charge of a 10-strong crew.

After being rescued, the men were brought back to St Peter Port, where two ambulances and an incident officer were waiting to transfer them to hospital.

Extra staff had to be called in to man the station.

*’Motorists are reminded that vehicles bearing green flashing lights are on their way to help in an emergency. Lifeboat crew have experienced some difficulties trying to get to the harbour speedily.

Article by Nick Mollet courtesy of www.thisisguernsey.com