Hero sailers

AFTER battling stormy seas and relentless rip tides to save the life of a pilot whose plane had plunged into the Irish Sea, a teenage Warwickshire boat crew sat down to celebrate - with a Pot Noodle.

The boys - Will Homer, aged 19, of Bridge End, Warwick, former Warwick School pupils Nick Bevan and Rob Pickering, both 19 and from Stratford, along with 33-year-old Londoner Oliver Dudley - were eleven days into their attempt to row around Britain in record time when they saw the plane plummet from the sky.

Despite knowing it would cost them valuable time, the team, since hailed as heroes, thought nothing of abandoning their charity fundraising record bid to race to the rescue of the pilot.

Nick, currently on a gap year, said: “It was Will who saw the plane crash and told the rest of us. We all got out on deck to have a look but we were in the middle of a really bad storm and were finding it hard to row through it.

“We put out a mayday signal but we didn’t think anyone on the plane would be alive until Oliver spotted a guy waving.

“Will and I rowed as fast as possible for about two miles to reach him - I think it was the fastest we’d ever rowed.”

When they reached the plane, the team found pilot John O’Shaughnessy on the wing of the sinking aircraft and waited with him until the rescue helicopter arrived.

“The coast guard said the helicopter would be there in about 20 minutes,” Nick added. “We carried on talking to the man but we couldn’t get too close - we were getting smashed around in the sea and it would have been a disaster if we’d hit the plane. It was sinking but we made sure he was OK.

“When the helicopter got here it was fantastic, it swooped over and lifted the pilot up and took him away straight away, we were really impressed and we were told we’d done a good job in directing them to the plane.

“Afterwards we sat and treated ourselves to a Pot Noodle, something we usually saved for reaching a landmark in our journey.

“We were all stunned - the whole thing was over in about 20 minutes but it was an amazing feeling to save someone’s life.”

The GB Row team is only the second in history to attempt to race against the clock around the British Isles.

They began their record-breaking attempt from Dover on August 1, sailing anti-clockwise around the country in their boat, the British Orchid, and had been hoping to complete the challenge in 25 days - beating the current record of 26 days 21 hours and 14 minutes.

But their first ten days were spent battling ferocious storms before narrowly avoiding being killed by a container ship after losing power to their warning transmitter.

After their heroic rescue mission on the eleventh day, the boys decided to abandon their goal after realising they had lost valuable time.

Nick said: “It was frustrating because we were on target to beat the record. But the good thing is we’ve raised a lot of money for the charity Orchid, one of the reasons we were doing the sail. We were able to sell the footage we’d filmed of the crash for about £5,000, which is going to the charity.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to try and beat the record again next year, if we can get sponsorship.

“We know we can do it, we were on track. There are a few things we need to change but we’ll go out there stronger than ever.”

To sponsor the team and donate to Orchid go to www.gbrow.com.