'I spent 30 minutes in the sea praying not to die'

A SAILOR said a prayer “not to let me die” and then jumped into the churning sea as his yacht was smashed against rocks at a group of islets off the Welsh coast.

- OWEN HUGHES

Chris Cowlard’s boat was hammered by the conditions at the Skerries and crashed into a submerged rock.

The 71-year-old former firefighter from Porthmadog, Gwynedd, had 40 years of sailing under his belt but this didn’t stop him running into a crisis off Anglesey, with his life at serious risk.

His eight-metre vessel was soon dismasted, forcing Chris to abandon ship in his lifejacket and wait in the waves for rescue.

He was saved by his own forward planning as he was able to broadcast his location with an emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) - bought less than three weeks before the incident.

This alerted the coastguard and around 30 minutes after entering the sea he was plucked from the waves by an RNLI lifeboat crew from Holyhead.

He said: “I had double-checked the chart and there was a course down the inside. I checked again and adjusted for the tide. Then there was a thumping great bang.

I knew what was happening immediately. I was being lifted by the waves and dropped. Bang! Bang! The mast went down and over the side.”

Having installed his VHF antenna on the stern instead of the now collapsed mast, Chris was able to broadcast a radio mayday as soon as he got into trouble at about 4pm on 24 June, alerting Holyhead Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC).