The impor­tance of Ama­teur Radio to the com­mu­ni­ty in times of cri­sis and emer­gency has again been shown through the res­cue of a yacht skip­per 130 kms east of Esper­ance off the West­ern Aus­tralian coast. 

On board the strick­en yacht ‘Vec­tor’ was 68-year old Peter Cook VK6BJC, on a trip to Ade­laide of about 2800 kms when on Mon­day May 4, broke a mast, acti­vat­ed an Emer­gency Posi­tion­ing Indi­cat­ing Radio Bea­con (EPIRB), set off flares and made dis­tress calls on both Marine HF and the 40 metre Ama­teur Radio bands. 

In the sto­ry by Andrew Smith VK6AS for NewsWest, the yacht had been washed against rocks. The Aus­tralian Mar­itime Safe­ty Author­i­ty (AMSA) reached the scene by heli­copter that land­ed on the rock. 

Andrew VK6AS said that Peter was able to walk to the heli­copter and flown to Esper­ance, where he was checked out med­ical­ly and reunit­ed with family. 

The event was very news­wor­thy, but despite exten­sive report­ing the role played by Ama­teur Radio it was not high­light­ed. The NewsWest broad­cast, thanks to the work of Andrew VK6AS who uncov­ered the full sto­ry on the res­cue by speak­ing to Peter VK6BJC and others. 

In his research, stormy weath­er was fore­cast and the yacht anchored overnight in Goose Island Bay in the Recherche Arch­i­pel­ago of South­ern West­ern Australia. 

How­ev­er, the winds picked up strong­ly to start drag­ging the anchor and after a four hour strug­gle against the ele­ments, the motor gave out and the ves­sel was washed over rocks and sus­tained damage. 

West­ern Aus­tralian radio ama­teurs, Ian VK6TWJ, John VK6FABC, Chris VK6JI and Richard VK6HRC all heard a faint May­day call, answered and received no reply. 

About 10 min­utes lat­er Peter VK6BJC was loud enough to get out his cur­rent posi­tion. It was left to Michael VK6TX to imme­di­ate­ly give all of those details to the Water Police. This was the first time the mar­itime dis­as­ter alert had reached the authorities. 

Emer­gency pro­ce­dures swung into action, with Ian VK6DW, the skipper’s broth­er phoned by the AMSA as the first per­son on their call­ing list. 

The pair had reg­u­lar morn­ing and evening radio “skeds”. In a quick call then on 40 metres he was told that the yacht would have to be aban­doned with­in min­utes. This mes­sage was relayed to AMSA togeth­er with an accu­rate posi­tion for the rescue. 

Peter VK6BJC told NewsWest that “between the Water Police and AMSA, my res­cue was out­stand­ing and seem­ing­ly with­out issue”. 

He con­tin­ued: “Ama­teur Radio made the com­mu­ni­ca­tion by me on Vec­tor pos­si­ble with quite a num­ber of peo­ple lis­ten­ing in and help­ing out”. 

Ian VK6DW also added: “Ham radio allowed me to let Peter know that help was on the way and to pass on some very help­ful advice at what was a very stress­ful time. It also made sure that the infor­ma­tion relayed in both direc­tions was accurate”. 

The fam­i­ly is very grate­ful to all that helped pre­vent what could have been a tragedy. 

‑Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee.