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Saturday, August 27, 2011
9:00 AM
A FISHERMAN who had to swim for more than an hour back to shore after his boat sunk was saved by his lifejacket, the coastguard has said.
The casualty was forced to abandon his 22ft fishing boat Migrant after a series of big waves caused it to rapidly sink off the coast of East Mersea on Thursday morning.
After swimming in the sea for more than hour the fisherman made it back to the East Mersea shore where he was met by an ambulance and the coastguard.
Stuart Belbin, station officer at West Mersea Coastguard, said: “We were paged to attend a vessel that had sunk. I was on my boat at the time, so I went to try and locate the sunken vessel while my colleagues went to find the missing fisherman.
“He had left in the early hours of the morning and was hauling his nets in when he was hit by two or three big waves and the scuppers went under.
“Fortunately he had the presence of mind to grab a life jacket and this undoubtedly saved his life.
“He was in the water for over an hour and when the coastguard found him he was coherent but absolutely exhausted and suffering from hypothermia. If he hadn’t been wearing a lifejacket I think we would have been looking for a body.”
Mr Belbin added that it was not uncommon for commercial fisherman to use single-handed boats. Because of the state of the fishing industry many fisherman could not afford to employ a crew.
“Fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world and I think there’s an important lesson to be learnt here – if you’ve got the safety gear then make sure you use it,” he said.
Thames Coastguard at Walton-on-the-Naze was alerted to the incident at about 8.40am following a report for the East of England Ambulance Service. The man was transferred to Colchester General Hospital and released later that afternoon. He is now recovering at home.
Mr Belbin found the fisherman’s sunken vessel about half a mile off the coast in an area that dries out at low tied. After a failed attempt to retrieve the boat on Thursday afternoon, four friends were able to return yesterday and tow the boat back to shore.
“It’s a close-knit community here and people want to help out when someone gets into trouble,” said Mr Belbin.