WHY WE WENT OFF THE AIR
Stuart Russell and Roger Mathews

(These two Disc Jockeys sent Newsletter a taped recording upon which this report is based. The original document actually named Roger as Robert, an obvious typing error).

It was just after breakfast on August 4th 1977 that we began to sink. Herman der Graaf (Who is a Mi-Amigo disc jockey) raised the alarm. He was in the library, there was a bit of a sea running and when the ship rolled right over on its side, he saw that water was slopping around under the radiator. Herman went below deck to investigate and discovered water sloshing around in the bowels of the ship. How would you feel if you were far out at sea and you found deep water sloshing around in the hold? Herman leaped to switch on the bilge pumps and then rushed around waking everybody, yelling that the ship was sinking.
Nobody took him seriously . . . at first. We marked the level of the water, took soundings and thus learned that the water was rising rapidly, despite the bilge pumps. This was an emergency!

We switched on the diesel pumps and reported by ship-to-shore radio link that we had a serious leak. The Kent police responded magnificently. At 10.45 a.m. their patrol boat arrived and stood by ready to give us assistance. It was arranged that they would radio an alert in the event that it was necessary to summons help. They circled slowly around the "Mi Amigo", most of the time lost to sight in a fine morning mist.

Our position was pretty desperate. The ship was wallowing heavily canted over on one side until its port rail was close to the water. And with its stern well down the ship looked so frightening we launched three lifeboats. lt was a case then of all hands below decks. The only way to stop our tub from filling up completely and sinking was to find that leak and plug it. Everybody helped pump and search for the leak, even the duty officer from the radio room. We prised up the bilge plates and craned our heads over them, listening for any glugging and bubbling that showed where water was pouring in. We can tell you listeners that when you get deep down into the bowels of a ship and the entrance hatch is a long way off, you get a nasty, uneasy and shut-in feeling. And this feeling isn't improved when another DJ, trying to be funny, asks: "What would happen now if part of the bottom of the ship fell out?"
And, when a few minutes after this crack was made, a main pump choked up . . . it certainly caused consternation! It took twenty minutes to tear that pump apart, unblock it and re-assemble it. And all the time we could see the water visibly rising! And even when we got the pump going again, we had to confront grim reality. Water was coming in faster than we could pump it out. The ship was sinking! "Mi Amigo" and "Radio Caroline" were going under!
While all this was going on the police patrol boat had tried to call us up by radio. But getting no reply they feared we might have sunk without trace and spent an anxious quarter of an hour chugging around in the mist searching for survivors. They were very friendly coppers who came alongside and were frankly very relieved to discover we were still afloat

One of the places where we hadn't searched for the leek was under the portside generator. So we closed it down, switching over to the starboard generator which kept us on the air. And now we were lucky. We discovered the source of our troubles. When generators are running they can easily become overheated. To prevent this seawater is sucked in through a pipe, is circulated around the generator to keep it cool, and is then discharged back into the sea. We discovered that the generator sea-inlet pipe had corroded and broken away. Our generator had been sucking up sea water into our ship faster than our pumps could pump it out again! Everybody knows how to deal with a leaking pipe. Before you start repairs you go to the main cock and turn off the water supply. And that's what we did. But we were so pre-occupied with pumping-out and effecting repairs that we weren't thinking clearly. We should have remembered that turning the water off at the mains meant that our starboard generator, which was still operating, would also be deprived of its cooling water! Generators are very expensive so they are provided with built-in safeguards. Our generator heated-up but before it could burn itself out a thermostat automatically switched it off. And that was when we went off the air! On shore, word was already going round that Caroline was sinking. When our broadcasting abruptly stopped a lot of people thought we had gone down. We had to get busy on the ship-to-shore radio link, turning back all the emergency craft that were setting out to rescue survivors. And then, with everybody mucking in, we got the ship dried out and the generator working again by 8 o'clock that evening.

August was our busy month. The 14th August was the tenth anniversary of Caroline being declared illegal. A thousand or more Free Radio enthusiasts gathered at Heathrow Airport for a nostalgic weekend of films, exhibitions, talks and debates. So on the Saturday, we devised a special programme aboard between 6 and 9 at night. We had a direct link-up between Radio Caroline and the Disc Jockeys who were taking part in the "Flash-back" celebrations. We even had Ronan O'Rahilly talking to the ship. We also linked up with Mike Jacobs and Herman der Graaf and had the "Mi Amigo" and "Caroline" studios both on the air at the same time. Our united transmitters gave us an all Europe coverage. We played records that were popular in the 60's, and tapes which recorded memorable historical events such as the time when D.J. Nick Luvzit got married to D.J. Ray Teret's sister Janet. Nick and the "princess" (as he calls Janet) set out in two launches together with their wedding guests and the Press, and were married aboard the "Amigo". The entire marriage ceremony was broadcast "live"!

The 16th August was a red letter day. A boatload of "Flash-Back" fans set out at 8 o'clock that morning to visit us, but due to mist and bad visibility the boat didn't make contact with us until late afternoon. Roger was on the air at the time doing his 3-6 stint. So Stuart Russell attached the mike to a long lead, climbed out on the centre deck and talked over the air to the boat for about twenty minutes. The visiting boat couldn't shut off its engines because it would roll too badly; so it circled around the "Mi Amigo" while the hundred or so passengers aboard triggered away with their cameras making all us on the "Mi Amigo" deck feel we are great celebrities.

All this occurred during the long eleven weeks stint we spent aboard. Steve Kent was taken badly ill with violent stomach pains and we had to radio for assistance and have him taken off by lifeboat. Luckily, it turned out to be nothing very serious. But it left us two alone to handle the 24 hours of broadcasting and we were more than grateful to our cook who helped us out on those occasions when we felt we were near the end of our tether. We stuck it out this way until the end of September when we were replaced by Mike Stevens, James Ross, Mark Lawrence and Dickie Allen. Then, after five weeks ashore we replaced Mike Stevens and Dickie Allen just in time to suffer a really terrible bout of bad weather. It was the worst weather we'd ever seen out there, and we've seen some bad weather in our time. It went on relentlessly for almost four weeks. A lot of the time the wind was blowing at Force 7, which is almost hurricane force. It was totally impossible for a relief ship to put out to us. We ran out of fuel and had to go off the air. We reserved just enough fuel to keep the small generator running that provides the ship's lighting. We eked out this fuel very carefully so that we could sneak some for the cooker and have an occasional hot meal. The days were cold and miserable and we were hungry too. We were off the air for 7 or 8 days before a relief boat reached us and by then we were down to a small sack of potatoes, one packet of rice and one of spaghetti. For the last week we'd lived on nothing but dehydrated kidney soup, or spaghetti soup.

It was about this time that the policy makers decided that "Mi Amigo" should join "Caroline" during the day on 319 metres. "Mi Amigo" was getting poor reception in Belgium and this new arrangement was calculated to give both stations a great increase in power. New equipment was brought aboard which boosted our power from 5 kw to more than 20 kw. So that is why "Mi Amigo" is broadcasting during the day, and "Caroline" from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. We are hoping soon to boost our power to 50 kw and this will enable us to smash through Europe with a phenomenal signal that can reach Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Holland.

We're not too lonely out here in the Channel because there is always somebody or another taking an interest in us. We get a regular fly-over by helicopters that dangle over us taking photographs. We wind scarves over the lower half of our faces and wave up at them chummily. Then, every so often, the Home Office officials charter a boat and circle around us, also taking photos. A day's outing for them at the public's expense, we suppose, because we can't think of any other reason why they should take photos of our concealed faces.

Apart from being entertained by such visitors, we have our cosy lounge with its big colour TV, and from time to time, when the "Mi Amigo" tapes don't get through to the ship we both give a "live" programme to help out the Dutch DJ's. Our accent is terrible but apart from that we are told our Dutch is very good. That's all for now. We'll be writing/dictating something else in the near future…..

(Taken from The Caroline Newsletter Issue 5, dated 1978. The DJ Steve Kent mentioned, was heard on Radio Kuwait, both before the Gulf War, and afterwards)