Thankfully the friend, Alex Evans, is a life boatman. He calmly used his mobile phone to co-ordinate a dramatic rescue operation for Mark Corbett and two other crewmen aboard a motor yacht with the unfortunate name of Titanic near the island of St Kitts.
And he did it all without leaving the DIY store where he was shopping with his mother.
Mark was part of a skeleton crew taking the yacht from Grenada to Puerto Rico for a refit.
He told Alex: ‘I’m on a ship in the Caribbean, we’re taking on water and we’re sinking. ‘We’ve lost all power so we can’t use the long-range radio. We’re too far from shore to use the VHF radio so I’m using the satellite phone – and yours is the only number I could remember off the top of my head. The ship is the Motor Yacht Titanic.’
Mr Evans jotted down the ship’s latitude and longitude on a till receipt then called Milford Haven Coastguard and asked to be passed to the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Falmouth, Cornwall, which deals with all international incidents.
He told them the Titanic’s position – and stressed the boat was taking on water.
A major rescue operation was then launched for the 1,700-ton yacht owned by a company called White Star Ltd, the same name as the cruise line which owned the ill-fated original Titanic.
Three hours later spotter planes found it barely above water, and it was towed by U.S. coastguards to safety in St Kitts.
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