Captain Richard Kirkby and three of the crew of 97-meter superyacht Mayan Queen IV are set to receive a prestigious Merchant Navy Medal for Meritorious Service following their rescue of 100 migrants from a sinking vessel in June 2023.
“It’s a fantastic honor, quite a surprise — had no idea it was coming our way. But I must say I’m not a one-man band. The medal to me belongs to the whole crew,” Captain Richard says. “I’m extremely pleased that the three rescue boat crew have got one as well because they’re all young and it’s not what you expect to have to do when you come into yachting.”
On June 14, 2023, around 2:30 a.m., Mayan Queen IV was sailing from Sardinia to Crete without guests when they got the VHF call from the Greek Coast Guard but weren’t given any details. They arrived 20-30 minutes later. “We get on site and then we saw bodies in the water and no vessel in distress, so it became obvious that something not very nice had gone on,” he shares.
The captain gave orders to launch the rescue boat immediately, and the three crew pulled people out of the water as quickly as possible. Initially, they put them on the coast guard boat, but it was too small, and so they were transferred to the mothership. Bosun Ashley West, Deckhand/Coxswain Ben Bramwell and Deckhand/Diver Trystan Tanner, were the crew assisting from the vessels' five-meter RIB and are also set to receive Merchant Navy Medals.
The 32 Mayan Queen IV crew members were looking out and listening for anyone remaining in the water. Much of the rescuing took place in the first hour, and by daylight at around 7 a.m., they were joined by other Coast Guard vessels and lifeboats from the mainland.
They were asked by the Coast Guard to transfer the 100 survivors to the nearest point of land, Kalamata, Greece, with the aid of security guards on board. Once they arrived in port, the 100 men disembarked and were detained and processed by authorities. The crew later learned that there were likely 750 people on board the fishing vessel that sank four kilometers into the Med.
Taught how to sail as a child by his father, Captain Richard joined the Merchant Navy at 18, working his way from officer cadet to master mariner unlimited. He’s been in yachting since leaving the navy in 1985, joining a small yacht in Greece, then Le Grand Bleu until she sold in 2002 and has been the captain of Mayan Queen IV since her launch in 2008 — having been with the owners for 23 years.
“The medal is an incredible, prestigious thing to have and I don’t know if any yachties have ever had this medal because it’s a Merchant Navy medal,” Captain Richard shares. Because the yacht is over the 3,000GT limit, all the officers have to have unlimited certificates and are all ex-Merchant Navy.
“They did extremely well because we train hard. We don’t train for rescuing migrants, but we do train man overboard,” he says. “It went like clockwork from that point of view. We always take training seriously but even more seriously now because you never know when you’re going to need it.”