MFV ARCTURUS PH7979

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Trawler returned to Plymouth after rescue of 31 migrants

The 'Arcturus-PH 7979' which helped rescue 39 migrants attempting to cross the English Channel has returned to Plymouth on Dec 18. Skipper Raymond Strachan said his boat and crew were "just in the right place at the right time". The rescue operation saw people in T-shirts and thin lifejackets shouting for help as people were pulled from the water. He and his crew saved 31 people over two hours, including eight children. A 19-year-old man has been charged over the deaths of four people who died in the English Channel. Report with photos: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-64018251

Skipper of trawler recounts rescue of 31 migrants in fatal migrant crossing

Raymond Strachan, the skipper of the 'Arcturus-BA 872', whose crew saved 31 people stranded in the English Channel said he was woken in the early hours of the morning of Dec 14, 2022, when migrants surrounded his boat, screaming for help. He had been sleeping when he was awoken by a member of his crew, who told him, "There are migrants alongside the boat. One guy was hanging off my wire. "I thought at first it was just him, and once I got my fishing gear up - which took about three minutes - I stopped my boat and ran outside and along the port side there were five of them hanging off the side of my boat." Raymond said he then counted 45 people holding onto the collapsed dinghy and surrounding his fishing boat. After the first five were pulled aboard, the rest of those stranded began swimming towards his boat. "It was like something out of a second world war movie, there were people in the water everywhere, screaming. The dinghy started to drift away, so I steamed towards the dinghy and we secured it with a rope to the side of the boat. "We were trying to pull them off the dinghy." After calling the UK coastguard just before 3 a.m., Raymond's fishing crew spent two hours pulling people from the water. Those he rescued came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Senegal and India, and they told him they had each paid £5,000 to a smuggler in France for passage into the UK.But as the crew began pulling away, taking its passengers into port, they realised one migrant had attached himself to the side of the boat and drowned. "One of the crew shouted, woah, there's a rope on the starboard side of the boat. "The next thing I knew this rope was attached to a dead body. We had been concentrating on the port side and this one person had swum to the starboard side, tied a rope onto my fishing gear and tied it around his wrist to keep himself alongside the boat. When I put my boat into gear his body floated up." 39 people have been rescued alive and brought to the UK. Some of those rescued were taken from the boat and others from the water. After being pulled from the water, Raymond says he gave everyone a "lukewarm shower", to slowly warm them back up. "We stripped all their wet clothes off, and my crew gave them any clothes they had to keep them warm. We put them in beds to keep them warm, with quilts, to get their body temperature up slowly." All 31 rescued by Raymond's team had survived. "When we got into Dover, a medic came down and checked on them and he couldn't believe how good a condition they were in, none of them had any hypothermia." Searches have continued all day, but more are feared dead given the icy conditions, with temperatures believed to be as low as -4C overnight. The HM Coastguard is working with the RNLI, Royal Navy, Border Force, French navy and Kent Police to look for the boat, while an air ambulance has also been sent to the scene. Reports with video: https://news.sky.com/story/they-surrounded-our-boat-screaming-for-help-fishing-crew-saved-31-stranded-in-the-english-channel-12767879 https://www.euronews.com/2022/12/14/four-people-dead-after-small-migrant-boat-capsizes-in-english-channel