Dinghy Dropping
The Vulcan @ #59 you asked for dinghy dropping stories.
I was on the crew with Norman Tench that dropped dinghies to 2 crew members of a catamaran that was about 300 miles SW of Ireland. The guys in the catamaran wrote an article for Yachting Monthly about the rescue, which would have been about 1981-ish (I haven't got my logbook with me at the moment). I think that the catamaran was called "Boatfile" or something similar, and belonged to Chay Blyth. Yachting Monthly presented a painting of the rescue to the crew at the International Boat Show in London the following January, might be worth trying to contact 206 (R) Sqn and see if they still have the painting, I think it detailed the crews of the dinghy and the Nimrod.
Anyway the story as I remember it -
A Nimrod flying the then Defence Minister John Knott was diverted after a distress beacon was activated south-west of Ireland and started to get a fix on it when they had to rtb at PLE. In the meantime we'd been called out to go and help. We found the guys after a bit of a search, in survival suits, but in a sinking dinghy. We lined up to drop Lindholme gear which landed close enough for the guys to get into (one of the guys stood up in the dinghy, holding the cover up like a sail as the other guy hung over the side acting as a rudder!!!) What we didn't realise is that only the dingy and one survival pack actually left the bomb-bay and there was a couple of hundred yards of line trailing after the aircraft. Satisfied with a job well done, we decided to climb above cloud for 30 mins to wait for the chopper to come out. After the half hour was up we decided to check on the dinghy to make sure all was well - to our horror, the dinghy was deflating and the guys were in serious trouble again. We made another Lindholme drop (again a faulty release) but the guys ended up with another dinghy dropped almost on top of them due to Norman Tench's accurate dropping. They managed to get into the 2nd dinghy, but left the Sarbe beacon in the old one, at this stage we hadn't seen them get into the new dinghy and couldn't see any signs of life in the new one and thought we'd lost them. At some stage in the events, we'd vectored a Fyffes banana boat onto the dinghy, but they couldn't get too close to them due to the sea state (it was horrendous). However, they had seen the transfer and let us know the guys were safely in the new dinghy.
A SAR Seaking made it out to the dinghy after refuelling in southern Eire and possibly a rig (it was a long time ago!), lifted the guys and took them to hospital. We landed at St Mawgan as the "national press" wanted to interview us - one guy from the Bristol Gazette!
As I've said, this all happened rather a long time ago, so may not be entirely accurate. I'm sure that there are one or two other members of the crew that look at Pprune from time to time that can corroborate/correct my memory. I'm sure that there will be a record in the 206 Sqn F540. I'll PM you with the date when I can get hold of my log book.
Daf