Jim Roberts on Saving Lives at Sea

Let’s go back to the morning of the 20th November 2005 and we were called out to a navigational obstruction in Spit Head which turned out to be the body of a very large dead whale. It was in a position west of St Helen’s Fort, moving towards Seaview.

Ryde Rescue was launched by Southern Coastguard and managed to take the whale in tow. That wasn’t an easy job on its own, trying to lasso a whale and tow it with an inflatable but they did succeed.

The Bembridge Coastguard mobile was also dispatched with myself on board and another crew member. On arrival, at Seaview Duver, we received a call from Ryde Rescue where should they take the whale. That was the first and only time in my life that I had ever been asked that question. What is the answer I thought.

After a minute or two’s thought, I decided to beach the whale on the eastern end of the beach at Puckpool Park. Why you may ask? Well, it seemed to me to be the best place. It was shallow, flat sandy beach, currently it was near high water at the time.

Also, we could control the general public who were bound to turn up and view, and most importantly we could get heavy diggers and lorries on to the beach as there was access nearby to the Seaview Duver road.

The operation to remove the carcass took about three days to cut up and load onto lorries and clean up the beach and attracted as we thought, many hundreds of sightseers. Quite what the attraction of a dead whale was I don’t know but there was all sorts of pictures in the County Press about it at the time.