Today a mate was giving us a lift from Peel Isle of Man over to Drummore in Southwest Scotland so I could bring my boat back home, I had to leave it there last weekend because of the weather.<br />The sea was flat calm but it was quite misty, visibility was down to 2 / 3 miles, no problem to navigate using the chartplotter.<br />Just as the Mull came into view we spotted a Rib heading straight for us on a collision course, taking avoiding action we couldn’t shake him off. We then realised he was waving to attract our attention.<br />After heaving to the Rib came along side and was occupied by six teenage lads and a girl, the conversation went like this.<br /><br />Rib, can you tell us where we are?<br />Me, Why?<br />Rib, I think we’re lost<br />Me Where have you come from and are going too<br />Rib Portpatrick to Bangor NI<br />Me Yes your lost you’re 3 miles south of the Mull of Galloway and a long way off course for Bangor, your heading would have taken you to the I.o.M.,<br /><br />After consulting our chart we gave him a heading for Bangor<br /><br />Rib We haven’t got compass<br />Me I’ll give you the Lat & Long to the entrance to Bangor Marina to put into your GPS<br />Rib We haven’t got Gps<br />Me have you VHF<br />Rib No, I’ve got a mobile <br />Me I’ll bet it doesn’t work here<br />Rib (checks his phone)<br />Your right no signal here<br /><br />Me do you have life jackets<br />Yes we have two<br />Me I think you’d better follow us to the Mull and coast hop back to Portpatrick and wait for better visibility<br />Rib Just point to Bangor and we’ll be on our way<br />Me Over there due west but you’ll only get lost again, follow us you won’t be able to navigate in this poor visibility<br />Rib I’ll use the sun <br />Me what sun?<br /><br />After trying to convince him not to go until visibility greatly improved he took of a great rate of knots in the wrong direction, to the south-west.<br /><br />We informed the coast guard of the situation.<br /><br />Coming home an hour and a half later we heard the coastguards organising a search and rescue with lifeboats in the Irish sea <br />SeaCat Isle of Man eventually picked him up and the rib was recovered by a Lifeboat<br /><br />Speaking with the Coastguard later he told us that the Rib ran out of petrol twenty minutes after leaving us
