On Saturday 16th June 1990 Marine Police Commander John Macdonald set out to do a final, pre-retirement tour of the four sea divisions. The day went as such days do except that as it wore on the weather steadily deteriorated. By the time he and his wife Patricia had visited PL2 Sea Tiger in Mirs Bay and rendezvoused with PL3 Sea Panther for a pleasant dinner in the lee of Ping Chau Island the sea state off the east coast was 6-7 with winds gusting up to 50 knots. Visibility was poor and a thunderstorm warning had been issued; there was some discussion as to whether the `farewell tour' should continue. But John Macdonald was no `fair weather commander' and he knew that PL3 would have to head south anyway as the East Division Operational Field Commander, Senior Inspector Alasdair Watson, was aboard. It was every bit as bad as they had expected:
"But it's always something to watch Marine crews operating in adverse weather conditions..."
It was shortly after 11 o'clock, when Sea Panther was off Tat Hong Point with the worst of the passage behind her, that a call for assistance from the 3,379 tonne Panamanian cargo ship Tien Fu was received through Marine Control. Her wood cargo had shifted and she was listing some 30 degrees, helplessly adrift in appalling seas several miles to the northeast of the Ninepins group of islands. There was nothing else for it: the Sea Panther turned about and battered her way back into the teeth of the storm, reaching the Tien Fu at twelve minutes past midnight.
At first it was simply a matter of standing by; the ship was on her beam ends but was not taking water and her Taiwanese master, who seemed to be well in command of the situation, had already called for a tug. Fortunately the Sea Panther's commander, Senior Inspector Paul Pang Wai-keung, was a fluent Mandarin speaker and swiftly established an excellent rapport with him. However as the hours went by the Tien Fu drifted until she was almost on to the Ninepins, and at 02.45 in the morning, just as the tug arrived, she capsized. The ship's crew, most of whom were Burmese with Taiwanese officers, kept calm and slid into the water in good order as she rolled over.
Rescue efforts were complicated throughout by the closeness of the Ninepins and the seas thundering upon them, but by the time the `crunch' came the crew of the Sea Panther had had time to make what preparations were possible. Liferafts were floated downwind to the sailors in the water while others were rescued by men using lifelines and scrambling nets in the huge seas that were still running. This required a blend of teamwork and sheer guts, for the winds were still gusting up to 50 knots and the seas were between twenty and thirty feet high; every time the launch rolled the men at the bottom of the scrambling nets manhandling the exhausted survivors were completely immersed. These men were under the direction of Bosun Sergeant 22857 Cheng Kwok-wai who seemed, in people's memories of the action, to have been everywhere at once. It was also Sergeant Cheng who, with Constable 19573 Chan Chi-choi, jumped into the boiling sea to save three survivors who were too exhausted to save themselves. During all of this the Sea Panther was so close to the jagged islands of the Ninepins group that she was in danger of becoming a wreck herself. John Macdonald particularly remembered the efforts of Paul Pang's bridge team in the wheelhouse:
"The sea was full of people in lifejackets, and it was raging and blowing and everything and there were people dashing about all over the place and doing the most amazing things. Unbelievable."
Within an hour the Mark III Damens PLs 71 King Yee and 81 King Mei arrived, and were deployed in the search for survivors in the water by Alasdair Watson and his Operations Room team headed by Inspector Greg Newman. At 04.20 hours PL81, under the command of Inspector M. C. Sharp, was tasked to rescue three survivors in a liferaft glimpsed perilously near the rocky shore of North Ninepin Island. This mission was almost aborted at the outset; the seas being so bad that the boat crane broke during the launch of the Avon rigid inflatable Searider and smashed it against the afterdeck, rupturing one of its buoyancy tubes and inflicting other superficial damage. Despite this Inspector Sharp together with L/M Sergeant 21822 Fung Wai-ming and Constable 22247 Yuen Kin-kong got under way in it and successfully located the liferaft.
By this time the survivors were too exhausted and seasick to help themselves, and during the operation to get them aboard the Searider's propeller fouled one of the liferaft's lines. The ruptured buoyancy tube and the extra people aboard made capsize an imminent possibility; and the next few minutes while Sergeant Fung coolly raised the shaft, cleared the propeller and got the engine going again were memorable to say the least. Eventually the boat limped back to the Sea Panther where it was lifted on deck, complete with crew and survivors, by one of her 10-tonne cranes.
By the time dawn broke it was almost all over: out of 19 crew members 15 had been rescued (11 by Sea Panther) and the bodies of the First Officer, the Chief Engineer and the Radio Operator had been recovered. Sadly, the Captain went down with his ship, a matter of true regret to those who had talked to him on the radio during the long hours as his ship had drifted before those awful seas.
No less than four Governor's Commendations, four Commissioner's Commendations, nine Director of Marine's Commendations and six Royal Humane Society Awards were later awarded together with numerous Commanding Officer's Commendations. It is especially pleasant to record that Queen's Gallantry Medals were awarded to Sergeant Cheng Kwok-wai and Constable Chan Chi-choi, both of whom were able to travel to London to receive them in person.
So ended John Macdonald's farewell visit to North and East Divisions: a visit rather more memorable than most.