Fact #63778

This feature by Johnny Black first appeared in Q magazine, June 1998

WITNESS : Various
EVENT : Simon Le Bon sinks aboard Drum England
DATE : 11 August 1985
LOCATION : Two miles off the Cornish coast.

Larry Slater (Petty Officer, RNAS Culdrose) : We were the Duty Search and Rescue Crew on immediate standby at 777 Squadron. The Fastnet Race, which Simon Le Bon’s boat Drum was competing in, had set off from Cowes, but there was a force 8 gale blowing that day so we expected there might be some action.

Skip Novak (skipper, Drum) : It was rough weather but the boat was reacting beautifully, yet in twenty seconds everything turned into a nightmare. The keel shearing off was totally unprecedented in a boat of that size. It was a real freak accident.

Peter Coad (Auxiliary Coastguard) : There were a dozen boats in the area at the time. It was sheer luck that I happened to be watching this boat through my binoculars. As I went to log it, this boat just flipped over. Immediately I sounded the alert down my direct landline to Falmouth Coastguard giving the boat’s position and bearing.

Simon Le Bon : I was sleeping, but I suddenly woke up … there was a terrific, very frightening bang - a couple of bangs - and then the boat went right over. It took twenty to thirty seconds to turn turtle.

I fell on someone and instantly realised we’d overturned. It flashed through my mind that I was going to die. I’d fallen on the guy who’d been in the bunk above me, then two big foresails had fallen on both of us. I was bruised on my arms, legs and feet, but I realised I was OK.

Larry Slater : At about two in the afternoon, we were in the crew room when we got a call from Falmouth Coastguard to say that a boat was in trouble about two miles out from Portscatho. We scrambled our Wessex 5 chopper and headed out through the storm towards the vessel.

Simon Le Bon : I looked around and saw Mickey, a crew member, trapped. All the other sails had crashed on him and he couldn’t move. Water was up to his face and he had to slant his head on one side so his mouth and nose didn’t go under. Someone managed to scramble to the galley to see if there was anything we could cut him free with. All we could find was a kitchen knife, so we just hacked away. The water was freezing, but nobody felt it. I could feel my adrenaline pumping.

We eventually managed to free Mickey, then four of us lifted a sail it had taken ten men to put in place and just tossed it aside like some matchstick. It’s just unbelievable the strength you seem to get in a situation like that.

Dennis Jory (freelance TV cameraman) : I was on board the Wessex with the Search and Rescue guys. It took us about ten minutes to reach Drum, and we saw that it was upturned and there were about 20 people clinging to the hull. We could see they were pointing down below, to indicate that there were others under the boat. I noticed one bloke hanging onto the rudder and, blow me, he was smoking a fag. Maybe he thought it was the last one he’d ever have.

Simon Le Bon : I was desperately frightened but, as with everyone else who had been below deck, instinct took over. It was quite frightening, to say the least. I wasn’t really aware of what was happening. It was just a matter of not panicking, of acting very logically and remembering that the air-sea rescue was on its way.

They were the scariest, the most nightmarish, the longest minutes of our lives. Leaking engine fuel was all over the place. The air was thick with diesel vapour. My skin started itching and my throat began to burn. All of us developed the same symptoms. Our situation was getting worse by the minute. I kept telling myself that rescue would come.

We looked down at the hatch and it was like looking at one of those fantasy sea creatures with hundreds of tentacles. There was a tangle of ropes, a real spaghetti junction. If anyone had tried to find a path through them, the real danger was that they’d have been snared and would have drowned. I remembered that in such cold water it could take as little as fifteen minutes to lose consciousness and then die.

Larry Slater : The people trapped inside were my first priority, so I put on my diving suit and jumped into the sea. As I worked my way back from the front end of the boat I got caught in some rigging. There were tangled ropes everywhere. Eventually, I located the hatch which was now upside down under the water, but I was able to slide it open and swim up through it. I found them in the cabin, waist-deep in water, huddled in the low glow of a battery light.

I don’t know how long they could have held out - perhaps an hour. There was a lot of oil in the water and the fumes were pretty toxic. It was a choking atmosphere.

Simon Le Bon : It seemed like an eternity before a head bobbed through the hatch, although it was only seven minutes. It was Larry. He removed his breathing tube and I’ll never forget his words. He said ‘Pooh! What have you been smoking in here?’

Larry Slater : I usually try to make light of these situations in the hope that it will help people to relax a little. Having found them all safe, I returned to the helicopter to get a spare set of goggles and a diving jacket but, on the way back down, I lost the goggles. Then the jacket was too bulky and I couldn’t get it onto any of them, so I had to come up with another plan pretty fast.

I told them I was going to take them out one by one but they would have about a ten foot swim underwater. I said ‘You’ll have to take a big deep breath and I’ll guide you out.’ I got them to stand in turn on the bottom of the upside down steering wheel. Then I would tap them on the leg so they knew I was about to grab them by the feet and pull them under the water and through the hatch. Once underwater, I held them by the scruff of the neck and pushed them past the ropes.

Simon Le Bon : I was first. He gave me a guiding push as I half-crawled, half-swam through the mess upside down. Suddenly my face was no longer under water. I’d hit the surface. I’d swallowed a mouthful of water, but I’m told by the lads who were on the hull that I had one hell of a good grin on my face when I came up.

Larry Slater : I had to go back six more times. One of them got a bit of rope across his face. He panicked and knocked my mask off. I struggled to put my mask back on and pushed him free. As I took each one outside, the guys on the hull pulled them up to relative safety. When all seven had joined the others on the hull, I returned to the chopper and came back down with a safety harness and we started winching them up. Even at this point, though, we didn’t have a clue that Simon Le Bon was one of them.

Dennis Jory : I was filming as they were winched up and, once we had a few on board we headed back to land. The chap sitting next to me suddenly tapped my leg with his arm and indicated that I should take a bit of film of him shaking hands with the man who had rescued him. We dropped them off in a field and went back for the others but it wasn’t until we got back to Culdrose and the phones were all ringing like mad that I learned who I’d just been filming.

John Francis (reporter, BBC Southwest) : Immediately after the rescue, we and the rest of the media all zipped down to The Falmouth Hotel where Le Bon was staying. He was joined there by his girl friend Yasmin. The two of them were pretty much trapped inside and wouldn’t come out while we all negotiated with his management.

David Brenchley (freelance photographer) : The hotel lobby was utter chaos, hundreds of fans and press milling around. I was the only one who noticed Yasmin nipping out and driving the car round the side of the hotel. I raced after her and got a picture of Le Bon jumping out of a back window to make his getaway.

Simon Le Bon : The whole incident reinforced my respect for the sea. That point was never brought home more deeply than the day after, when I went down to the quayside. I put my hand in a rock pool and felt the soft, cool water, and realised it nearly took my life.

Thanks : Chris Young at BBC Radio Cornwall, Ian McKay at RNAS Culdrose, Rosie Easton, Tamsin Curnow, David Green.