He and his crew saved the lives of 34 people aboard the cargo vessel MV Bonita in 1981
Michael “Bones” Scales, who has died aged 72, led his crew in the RNL lifeboat Sir William Arnold in a dangerous but successful rescue in the English Channel.
The wind in the Channel on December 13 1981 was blowing storm force 10, gusting to hurricane force 12, when at 14:00 Michael Scales, cox’n of the St Peter Port lifeboat Sir William Arnold, and his seven-man crew, all Guernsey volunteers, were called out. Forty miles north of Guernsey, on the edge of the shipping lane, the MV Bonita had shifted her cargo of fertiliser and was listing heavily.
Low-water spring tide coincided with the lifeboat’s departure, and the sea was extremely rough, with confused overfalls, as course was set north through the Little Russell Channel. When the radar was not blanked out by heavy snow showers, the waves appeared like walls of water, and near Brehon Tower Sir William Arnold broached for the first time, the first of many broachings, but full speed was resumed immediately.
Onboard Bonita were 36 souls, including the Ecuadorian crew, engineers and an electrician from Spain and Norway, and some wives and children. When Scales found Bonita, after navigating through the dark by dead-reckoning, a naval helicopter had already taken off a mother and child, but icing and low fuel had forced the helicopter to return to Portland.