4. Biscaya, rescued by Helicopter

After 8 days in Falmouth, time had come to head for La Courana in Spain. Checked with locals and a weather specialist from Norway, forecast was good – maybe a few calm days towards the end. The voyage started well, weather was in my favour. Managed to do a few repairs on the boat and bought lots of good food. The wind picked up at nightfall and the waves grew larger and larger. Took down most of my large sails. During the day the wind picked up even more and I ran into some thick fog. Did not sleep the night before and I started getting seasick and feel bad. The plan was to sleep during the day, but due to the fog I could not. That evening the wind and fog increased even further so I decided to head for France about 100 nautical miles away. I did not have a map for France, I thought I would radio in and have the coastguard send a boat with a map or guide me in to shore. When I was about 40 nautical miles from shore, I called someone on the radio and expressed that I needed help to get to shore. Unfortunately, French people are not that fluent in English, but they understood that I needed help to get to shore.

Tired after 2 days without sleep..

I expected a small vessel that would come and help me, instead a supertanker (picture) came up next to me. There were a lot of people on the bridge that waved to me and told me to climb the ladder hung on the side of the tanker, I thought OK. I guess this is the way they do it. I climbed the ladder and expected someone to tie my boat to theirs and tow it behind. After coming to my senses and relaxed a bit down below deck, I went upstairs to see the captain, I got the feeling that he was surprised to see me up already. I asked him about my boat and was told they left it behind in the ocean, not often this happens but I could not believe my own ears. I just about freaked out and demanded that he return to pick up my boat. To my great dismay he had been given instructions to rescue me and not my boat, and by the way he was en-route to Spain. Another reason was that there was a helicopter on the way to pick me up in 20 minutes. I asked them to call the coast guard and explain to them that I was not dying and that I had asked for help for me AND my boat and I wanted them to bring me back to pick up my boat. They refused to return to pick up the boat but after a long discussion they agreed to contact the navy to find out if they would pick up the boat. I think their attitude was that the boat would eventually reach shore or sink.

The mood on board improved when I found out that the navy would pick up the boat. Here is the captain and some of his crew from the Philipines.
After a while, a huge military helicopter arrived and lowered a rescue personnel and a stretcher, they waved me over and placed me on the stretcher and hoisted me up to the helicopter (things like this only happens in movies, unfortunately I was the star of the show). Once inside the I was placed on a hospital cot and the doctor gave me an intravenous injection and they worked on me as if I was seriously injured. When things calmed down a bit they finally realized that I was not seriously injured :)

The doctor and the rescue person.

There were a few jokes when they realized I was in good shape. They wondered if they should fill the intravenous bag with Vodka and take me downtown to the bars. :)

Doctors and nurses that looked after me in the hospital. Was there for 24 hours, slept all the time.

A representative from the Norwegian embassy came and got me at the hospital and helped me with a hotel room. He explained that at the same time I made the emergency call, a fisherman had an accident on another boat and received a serious head injury, that is when the misunderstandings started, I can recall now that all doctors asked me where in the head I got hit. :)

The guy from the embassy kept in contact with the navy to hear if they found my boat.

Finally, after thre days, my boat arrived on shore. The navy found it about 50 nautical miles from where we left it. It was three nervewrecking days, I thought the boat was ransacked, but it was still in one piece and nothing was missing. :)

This is the vessel that picked up my boat.

Camera shy Navy staff. I had to sign a rather large pile of papers, the word insurance was mentioned more than once. The embassy person told me not to worry, I should not have to pay anything – it was all a misunderstanding.