Wednesday 5 May 2010

Two In One Week..?

Isle of Sheppey:
A lost sailor has had to be rescued after running out of fuel circling a small island when he thought he was sailing around the UK coast.

The Sheerness lifeboat and the Thames Coastguard assisted the man who ran aground off the Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey on 19 April.

Canvey Island:
The 32ft Myra Two motor cruiser had to be guided to safety by coastguards yesterday after its captain ran aground as he attempted to sail out of the River Thames.

It turned out the hapless mariner and his passenger had no maps, emergency flares or radio - and had been using a car sat-nav system to help guide them through the treacherous waters.

The dopey duo had set sail from London aboard the £20,000 cruiser and were heading out of the Thames Estuary when they ran aground at Holehaven Creek, near Canvey Island in Essex.
Is there some reason for this? Other than arrant stupidity on the part of both 'sailors'..?

I mean, I don't remember hearing about this sort of thing last year. Has sailing become fashionable amongst the intellectually-challenged?

Did Kerry Katona or Cheryl Cole tell their followers that sailing was really cool, like, an' anyone can do it, yeah?

4 comments:

Macheath said...

Two words - lottery win.

Mark Wadsworth said...

T'would have been even more hilarious had the second lot run aground while trying to sail round Canvey Island.

Angry Exile said...

" ... I don't remember hearing about this sort of thing last year. Has sailing become fashionable amongst the intellectually-challenged?"

Rescue services the world over are forever having to go and help complete idiots who've got into trouble that half a minute's rational thought before leaving the house would probably have prevented. It may not have been news last year but I'd be prepared to bet there was no shortage of similar stories, though possibly not at quite that level of stupidity. If you want evidence for that I give you the example of Eric Abbott, who in 2000 had been rescued a dozen times by August that year while attempting to navigate in the Irish Sea with a three year old AA road atlas.

JuliaM said...

"Two words - lottery win."

Ah. Never thought of that.

"T'would have been even more hilarious had the second lot run aground while trying to sail round Canvey Island."

Heh!

"It may not have been news last year but I'd be prepared to bet there was no shortage of similar stories..."

Yes, I've often found if one newspaper runs an 'odd/funny' story, the others will scramble to find a similar one...