Mi
Amigo on the Long Sand
In the Daily Telegraph of
26th May 1990 we are told:
'The Independent
Broadcasting Authority is facing the threat of legal action from one of its own
local radio stations, which has been caught up in a battle of the airwaves to
silence the offshore station Radio Caroline.' It appears that the Spectrum
Radio station had been assigned the same frequency occupied by Radio
Caroline-558 on medium wave - and was consequently drowned out by Caroline's
powerful level of transmission. Silencing Radio Caroline is not an easy task it
seems. But it has happened twice - for two very short periods. Craig Seton,
writing in The Times of 21st March 1980, put it very neatly:
'Radio
Caroline, the original offshore radio ship, sank off the Essex coast yesterday,
silenced by the heavy seas that were the only threat to its existence since it
was outlawed by the British and Dutch governments in the late 1960s.'
This was not the first time the lifeboat was
called out to save lives from the Mi Amigo, the old Dutch coaster which had
been specially converted to a radio station, with a lofty mast for its
transmitter making it instantly recognizable. Fourteen years previously, on
19th January 1966, a vicious, snow-laden wind hit the radio ship so hard that
it broke from its moorings and ended up on the beach near Chevaux de Frise
Point at Great Holland. The lifeboat service's inspector reported on the
incident, concluding, 'the coxswain and his crew showed courage, determination
and skill in boarding the lifeboat in conditions of wind, sea and
bitter cold which were the worst known for many years at this most exposed
station.' The lifeboat could not itself make the rescue but had to stand by
while the Mi Amigo's men were brought ashore by the line rigged by the team
operating the Life Saving Apparatus, better known as the breeches buoy.
It was not
long before cheeky Radio Caroline was in position once again, 13 miles off the
Essex coast east of Southend, because it was necessary to station the Mi Amigo
outside the territorial waters of the United
Kingdom to avoid
prosecution. Fourteen years after it was blown ashore the ship and the station
were being run by a crew of just four men who, on the fateful Thursday, 20th
March 1980, included two men of East Anglian origin. One was Timothy Lewis from
Snape, Suffolk and the other was Nigel Tibbles from Rayleigh, Essex. They may
have been men of the modern age of pop-songs and soft-living but they certainly
showed their mettle when, for the second time, Radio Caroline went aground.
On this
Thursday a gale sprang up; it became a storm that blew the Mi Amigo, anchor;
cable and all off its mooring and on to the notorious Long Sand to the northeast
- graveyard of so many ships. Here the anchor caught and held. The crew had to
report their new position, but they did not really appreciate what danger they
were in. The Coastguard did. They alerted the Sheerness lifeboat station and
the Helen Turnbill, having just returned from a rough weather exercise, had
hurriedly to turn out again for the real thing.
Out it went
at full speed into the teeth of a force nine gale. The sea was so rough with
short steep seas that the lifeboat was like a boxer taking a series of thumping
jabs on the chin. Speed had to be reduced because the boat was shipping so much
water. Through the Oaze Deep, into the Black Deep, and then, from the crest of
a mighty wave the Mi Amigo was spotted lying on the Long Sand with the receding
tide leaving it in only a few feet of water. Radio contact was made, help was
offered, but these unusual sons of the sea and the air waves said they did not
need immediate help as they were even then trying to get the pumps working in
the hope that they would get off the sand as the tide rose.
They did not
have the lifeboatmen's long experience of what could happen to a vessel on the
Long Sand in such heavy seas. The lifeboat came up close to the stern of the
Mi Amigo and kept station
there as both vessels were pitched and tossed about by the rollers sweeping
across the sands. The coxswain told the Caroline crew, sweating still over the
pumps, that they would be in serious trouble, not to say danger to life, if
their ship sank in the rapidly rising tide. It became obvious to the Caroline
boys that the pumps were not going to cope with the inrush of water into the
badly leaking vessel. They accepted the offer of a lift shorewards from the
lifeboat.
The Helen
Turnbill then fell further astern of the Mi Amigo to assess the best way of
getting near enough to take off the crew. The coxswain spotted that on the
starboard side of the stricken ship there were rubber tyres suspended to act as
fenders for supply ships. So he chose that side to make his approach and asked
his men to judge their course and speed so that they would come alongside at
the precise moment between the crests of two racing waves. It was a rescue
fraught with immense danger because one error in the fine judgment of helmsman
or engineer could lead to the lifeboat being smashed down on the Mi Amigo's
deck.
Patience and
seamanship were the order of the day. Three times the Helen Turnbill attempted
to run in but had to break it off. At the fourth attempt one man was grabbed
before yet another wave crashed down on the deck. Round went the lifeboat in
those awful seas, to approach the Mi Amigo five more times and come away at
last with the second man. It was as they were about to pull away at full speed
that the third man started running down the deck, carrying a bird in a cage.
The lifeboat throttled back, the man jumped to safety, and a great wave lifted
the lifeboat and slammed it against the ship's side. It took four more
dangerous passes at the stricken vessel, now being overwhelmed by the waves,
before the last disc jockey could be pulled to safety from the stanchion to which
he
had been clinging for dear
life. The very next wave lifted the Mi Amigo high, and it seemed to give a
great sigh as it slipped down on to the sand in 25 ft of water.
I took this
picture of the Mi Amigo’s mast, two Days
After she
sunk. B.M.
Albert, who
organised the trip said “She looks like she
Is asking to
be towed off the sandbank”
Having taken the first disc jockeys ever to be saved from the sea back
to Sheerness, the coxswain told the press, 'the operation to get the crew off
took twelve hours. It was the hairiest rescue I have ever done.' The survivors
were taken to the police station where they received the warmest hospitality.
At the same time they were warned that they would be reported to the Director
of Public Prosecutions under the Marine Broadcasting (Offences) Act of 1967
because the ship, albeit wrecked, represented a pirate radio station in the
national waters of the United Kingdom!
The Mi Amigo
still lies deep in the Long Sand, but anyone can switch on their radio and hear
Caroline still sailing along on the airwaves.