Im not so sure. It takes a big decision for the captain of a Submarine to get on the Radio and shout "Mayday". He would have thought long and hard about that one. His priority would be to safe the ship first and then sort out the casualties.

Whatever, that period of time wuold have the most difficult few hours in that young Captains career.

I quite agree, and the Captain faced an unenviable task which I for one would not have liked. However, it's easy to turn a helo around if it's not required, and the helo crew remain the best judges of what is and what is not possible. There was a classic example in the Falklands where a rescue attempt was delayed for over 12 hours whilst everybody (ie everybody except the helo crew) debated whether or not a winch transfer from a civvy cruise ship was possible - this based on the opinion of the RN doctor on the cruise ship who thought "it would be too difficult".

Blacksheep here are some links on how to mitigate the consequences of changing the name of a seagoing vessel


Here's one with some other useful information

Here's the correct procedure for renaming

And another

Here's a gratuitous posting regarding ships' bells


Not meant to be a frivolous post btw.