Lovely day on Saturday...

[Giles Rowley]

Just in case you are unaware, Saturday was a fine dry day in the south west of England. So what I hear you say? Well, at around 2pm on Saturday afternoon, a Royal Navy vessel under the command of personnel from the Brittania Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (an elite training college for officers) hit rocks 10 miles south of Plymouth. This was even more amazing as the Eddystone lighthouse is built upon the rocks the vessel hit!!!
Two lifeboats were sent out from Plymouth and a Navy warship was also in attendance to tend an injured man and fly him to Deriford hospital with the ships helicopter.
The apparent excuse for this 'slight' navigational error was that the position given by the GPS aboard the vessel was incorrect by 1 mile. Obviously the flat calm conditions and surface visibility of at least 12 miles on this clear, sunny afternoon made spotting a lighthouse that stands some 100ft or so above the sea a bit difficult!!!

[Keith Lawrence(BSAC)]

Just in case you are unaware, Saturday was a fine dry day in the south west of England. So what I hear you say? Well, at around 2pm on Saturday afternoon, a Royal Navy vessel under the command of personnel from the Brittania Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (an elite training college for officers) hit rocks 10 miles south of Plymouth. This was even more amazing as the Eddystone lighthouse is built upon the rocks the vessel hit!!!
Two lifeboats were sent out from Plymouth and a Navy warship was also in attendance to tend an injured man and fly him to Deriford hospital with the ships helicopter.
The apparent excuse for this 'slight' navigational error was that the position given by the GPS aboard the vessel was incorrect by 1 mile. Obviously the flat calm conditions and surface visibility of at least 12 miles on this clear, sunny afternoon made spotting a lighthouse that stands some 100ft or so above the sea a bit difficult!!!

I think that you are being a little unfair Giles. It shows considerable navigational skill to hit a target that small, things have obviously improved somewhat since they practiced on Australia ;-)

K

[pat farrell]

:=Just in case you are unaware, Saturday was a fine dry day in the south west of England. So what I hear you say? Well, at around 2pm on Saturday afternoon, a Royal Navy vessel under the command of personnel from the Brittania Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (an elite training college for officers) hit rocks 10 miles south of Plymouth. This was even more amazing as the Eddystone lighthouse is built upon the rocks the vessel hit!!!
:=Two lifeboats were sent out from Plymouth and a Navy warship was also in attendance to tend an injured man and fly him to Deriford hospital with the ships helicopter.
:=The apparent excuse for this 'slight' navigational error was that the position given by the GPS aboard the vessel was incorrect by 1 mile. Obviously the flat calm conditions and surface visibility of at least 12 miles on this clear, sunny afternoon made spotting a lighthouse that stands some 100ft or so above the sea a bit difficult!!!

I think that you are being a little unfair Giles. It shows considerable navigational skill to hit a target that small, things have obviously improved somewhat since they practiced on Australia ;-)

KWarship on exercise heard on vhf. vessel at position x this is warship y you are on a collision course.change course imediatly to a. This went on for some minutes. The reply was then heard ,warship this is lighthouse b we are unable to manouver sugest you take avoiding action.

[Lynn Jackson]

Just in case you are unaware, Saturday was a fine dry day in the south west of England. So what I hear you say? Well, at around 2pm on Saturday afternoon, a Royal Navy vessel under the command of personnel from the Brittania Royal Naval College, Dartmouth (an elite training college for officers) hit rocks 10 miles south of Plymouth. This was even more amazing as the Eddystone lighthouse is built upon the rocks the vessel hit!!!
Two lifeboats were sent out from Plymouth and a Navy warship was also in attendance to tend an injured man and fly him to Deriford hospital with the ships helicopter.
The apparent excuse for this 'slight' navigational error was that the position given by the GPS aboard the vessel was incorrect by 1 mile. Obviously the flat calm conditions and surface visibility of at least 12 miles on this clear, sunny afternoon made spotting a lighthouse that stands some 100ft or so above the sea a bit difficult!!!

As opposed to our DO who 'lost' the Eddystone some years ago!
Our newsletter attempted to discover the reason.

1. Some had stolen the lighthouse.
2. In the aftermath of 9/11 a ten mile offset was intoduced into the satellite positioning system.
3. A magnetic anomaly had caused an error in the compass.
4. We were in the right place, the lighhouse and rocks had been moved by 10 miles.
5. The DO had been given the wrong GPS datum.

hmmm.... :-D

[vice-chairman]

Hi Giles,

Bet you would have missed it:-)

Cheers.........Allan

[Andy Nye]

Reminds me of the day when ya DO and group came to Dover and i gave up a whole weekend dives for you, so that you all could get a dive , coz of odd numbers .

DO says to me " we need to go out the Eastern entrance and your driving for the Western entrance "..........what a pil*** he was.

"Being a local skipper / diver here for years , i think i know which entrance is which ".

Then he says after the dive " Sorry, you can't cox tomorrow , coz you don't hold a BSAC boat cox'n ticket "


FFS


Andy

I still laugh to this day

[Lynn Jackson]

he's a good guy, Andy. The odd slip-up can happen to anyone - even DO's. We don't all live 500 yards from the sea and conceal our gills, y'know.

I was gently teasing him - not opening him up to ridicule.

There is a difference...

(Sorry 'DO' if you're reading this...)

[Paul Oliver]

Lynn

Thats nothing you should hear what he says about his own DO, and their old mate's. Every slip does the rounds. LOL.

Anyway the Yachties can be worse, we have a North cardinal buoy just inside western entrance (or is it eastern?).

A large yacht was entering there and started to go between the buoy and the outer wall (there is a large foul/old blockship under there).

Port Control - "Yacht ******* change course to North of the North Cardinal Buoy"

Yacht - Please Repeat over

Port Control - "Yacht ******* change course to North of the North Cardinal Buoy"

Yacht - Please repeat over

Port Control - "Yacht ******* change course to North of the North Cardinal Buoy"

Yacht - "You want me to go North of the North Cardinal buoy" in a disbeleving voice.

Port Control - "Yes (sigh), and the harbour patrol boat will escort you into the marina - standby, Seacat and Cruise liner wait till we have Western clear"


Dive Safe

Paul
A far from perfect DO