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Linnet Woods for MarineZine
On Sunday 18th July 1999 at 0500 hours, North Post Radio and several commercial vessels in the area north of Trinidad, West
Indies, picked up a 'Mayday' call, on VHF channel 16. A yacht was ablaze and preparations were being made to abandon
ship.
54 year old Swedish single-hander, Dag Blidback ( pronounced Daag Bleedbeck ) was talking into his
hand-held VHF as he switched on his EPIRB Kannad 406 in the cockpit of his
racer/cruiser Arcona 36, "Star Dust".
North Post Radio, brain-child, incidentally, of Sweden's Honorary Consul in Trinidad, responded immediately and
tried, initially without success, to alert the local coastguard, based in Staubles
Bay, Chaguaramas.
The first mate, up on deck aboard the LPG tanker 'Knud Kosan', bound for Guyana heard North Post put out a general alert and hurried to apprise Captain Henrick
Bruun, a Danish citizen in his mid-forties of the situation.
As the ship made all speed back in the direction from which it had come, a column of smoke could be seen rising almost a thousand feet into the
air.
Meanwhile, the coastguard had been raised but it became clear that no vessel could be sent to arrive in less than four hours so it was agreed that
'Knud Kosan' would attempt a rescue and, if all went well, would transfer Dag to coastguard cutter #8 just outside the Boca de
Monos, a narrow channel leading to Chaguaramas into which an LPG could not
venture.
As Dag, flames licking at his back, was deploying his Autoflug Petrel 4-man
life-raft, the coastguard official was asking him for his full name and passport
number, apparently unaware that a life and death drama was taking place.
North Post tactfully intervened and coordinated the rescue mission from then on, agreeing to stand by and monitor
proceedings.
The sea was flat calm and only the gentlest of breezes fanned the flames as Dag,
now safely aboard the life-raft, floated slowly northwards away from 'Star
Dust', by now a raging inferno afloat.
In Part
II, read how Dag, awaiting his rescuers, watched from too close for comfort as
'Star Dust' began to disintegrate before his very eyes.
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