Radio Ship On Fire! - the FULL broadcast of RNI - '71

[@oldgitsknowstuff]

I remember listening to this lIVE. Mayday Mayday Mayday..we are on fire. AND THEY STILL PLAYED THE MUSIC. Respects.....

[@MiniMicroMan1]

Yes like others I also remember listening to this live. I loved RNI and this was a very sad day. This brings back a lot of memories.

[@avabethmcghee3048]

This was probably the most surreal thing I've ever, ever heard.

[@Sheffield_Steve]

I had heard about this on a BBC Radio 2 documentary called The Story of Pop Radio, hosted by Noel Edmonds. He said that it was probably the 1st time an S.O.S message had a backing track. Really, surreal to hear in full though. Interesting what your mind can do to erase from memory to help you dealing with the shock, trauma, etc. To think that Alan West doesn't remember it at all! Wow!

[@noordzee1367]

I remember that night very well,it must go down as the most exciting piece of radio ever,i was glued to the radio and trying to ring the switzerland office was impossible as the phone lines where jammed,a great radio station

[@shropshirelass66]

thank you for uploading this

[@NewZman23]

Nice to hear this theme on You Tube. Brings back some great memories. I have 2 LP records with Pirate radio recordings. Listening to the pirates when i was living in London in the 1970s was exciting. I remember going on protest marches to Trafalgar Sq demanding "Free radio" from Harold Wilson's government. We used the theme tune from Dad's Army but with the words "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Wilson, if you think free radio's down". We also had radio pirates in New Zealand in the mid 1960s and a film of the first kiwi Pirate Radio station, Radio Hauraki has just hit cinema screens in NZ and the USA called "Three Mile Limit". Radio Hauraki's ship was called the MV Tiri - it got into trouble in a storm once and they also had to send out a mayday signals as the ship was wrecked on some rocks. But Hauraki soon bounced back on the airwaves with the Tiri ll and they still broadcast today (legally) over a national FM network throughout NZ. I'm looking forward to seeing the movie this week: 3 MILE LIMIT Teaser Trailer

[@morpheusatloppers]

Have you seen "The Boat That Rocked"? (US title: "Pirate Radio") - great film.

[@NewZman23]

morpheusatloppers yes good movie.

[@burkeshaw]

It's funny! I used to live in Goose Bay Labrador Canada when it was "Goose Airbase" a U.S. SAC airforce base. We were given military issue multi-band radios and I remember hooking ours up on our t.v. antenna (we had A.F.R.T.S. t.v. programming) and playing radio roulette! I had heard of the pirate stations in Europe, but was never able to find them. Heard a LOT of South American Spanish and of course Voice Of America but A.M. seemed to hold most of my interest. Goose Bay was an excellent area for "skip" so I would hear the latest in Rock and Roll from stations like W K B W out of Buffalo N.Y. You talked about European and New Zealand pirates, I suggest there were Mexican stations like Wolfman Jack's X E R B out of Rosarito Beach Baja which claimed to be "only 100,000, watts but could be heard on most car radios continuously from New York City to San Diego! The movie "American Graffiti" paid homage to the station and Wolfman Jack by suggesting Robert Smith (Wolfman's real name) was actually Wolfman Jack's producer! A facade probably to keep Smith out of trouble - some of his shenanigans on X E R B were "murky" at best! An excellent vid of a dangerous event! morpheusatloppers thanks for posting!

[@morpheusatloppers]

People tuned in and out of radio stations - so Alan just kept on going, repeating the distress message until they told him to abandon ship. They could hardly have made a tape loop of it, just in case. I mean, who knew?

[@davecommentator]

This happened 15 years before I was born and offshore radio was pretty much gone completely by the time I was of the age to pay attention to radio, but for some reason listening to this makes me feel really sad :'(

[@jmenge4253]

Wel gezellig, zo`n mayday met een muziekje erbij....

[@TheGriswald999]

Listened to it live at the time one was fearful for there safety as it was night time

[@Diskoboy1974]

Man Of Action playing in the background just makes this even more creepy for some reason.

[@parasatc8183]

Diskoboy1974 I don't think so. In fact it makes the SOS call sound like novelty to me.

[@michaelpope2886]

If that was the station theme, it makes sense to play it, but yeah... it's weird to hear the bright music behind the SOS call.

[@Roger.Coleman1949]

Remember listening to this' live ' so well, I was in my Austin Mini in a traffic jam heading for Newmarket, I suspect that most others in the mass of cars were listening too !

[@zetametallic]

Roger Coleman I naturally do this too link events with what I was doing at the time; makes for some interesting tales like yours xxx

[@HappyCynic]

You were in a traffic jam that late at night?

[@brianlewis3888]

I was listening to this drama when lying in the bath! Seems like only yesterday. I took part in a demonstration at Rochester in Kent after it had been discovered that RNIs broadcasts were being jammed from a transmitter site located there. Then while on holiday in Holland I managed to locate the Mebo 2 which was being used as a tender to supply the Mebo 1. not that I was allowed to go on board by some rather burley Dutchmen! Brian.

[@julianswatteridge5995]

Very sad jammed by the Labour Party !

[@simonfp3339]

This is NOT the full broadcast of the Mayday messages. They started well before this and ended a good 10 minutes afterwards. This recording is taken from the Jumbo Records album "10 Years Of Offshore Radio" I have around 45 minutes of these Mayday broadcasts from FM.

[@julianswatteridge5995]

Put it up here then please

[@EverardDavy]

Hi. Yes. I agree this is obviously not the full broadcast. If you still have your recordings it would be really great if you could post them here. Or on some other platform.

[@prof.hectorholbrook4692]

Amazing. A truly traumatic experience.

[@Richard_K1630]

This was interesting. I never knew about this. It's fun to look back. Today radio is so obnoxiously irrelevant.

[@morpheusatloppers]

@ChrisJBrady - It was their THEME! I think Alan was running on auto-pilot and used a "musical bed" for the emergency broadcast out of HABIT!

[@BackToTheBlues]

Sensible move, I thought - regular listeners would recognise the theme and instantly know something was wrong.

[@prof.hectorholbrook4692]

Agree!

[@christophereast8268]

I remember this live!

[@henkhartog8630]

dit vergeet ik nooit meer....is lang geleden...Was verschrikkelijk. ...maar was later opgelost. ..De dader opgepakt... ( ik EN u weten wie dat waren ) ..Ja, harde tijden op de Noordzee

[@jandenhartog398]

Wat herinner ik me dit nog goed !! Hierna nooit meer Veronica voor mij die hier verantwoordelijk voor was !!

[@robferwerda4376]

Veronica is het voor mij NOOIT geweest, ook niet voor hun bomaanslag! Maar toen ZEKER! Boeventuig!!

[@vanafdenoordzee]

During the fire ,on the MEBO II,it was a record ,on the turntable:Butterfly by the Hollies.....

[@marcovandeloenhorst3894]

'Try it'

[@ermyvids]

incredible

[@nickmaskell268]

loved RNI sadly the Mebo II came to a sticky end after being sold to the to Libya who used the ship for target practice and she now rests in peace at the bottom of the mediterranian sea

[@BrianG61UK]

Was this recorded off air? From which frequency? Received at what location?

[@TobyKoehn]

wow.

[@19GN03]

Je hebt gelijk, ging veel geld in om, en Veronica (Verweij) waren natuurlijk bang om reclame gelden mis te lopen.

[@1032cr]

Na de bom aanslag heeft Radio Veronica veel reclame gelde mis gelopen.

[@gerardkrist7564]

door en in opdracht van VERONICA

[@videotoblin]

This got dark...

[@PD0G]

kippenvel !!!

[@1032cr]

Zeg dat wel wat een top tijd was dat dit komt nooit meer terug.

[@alexfwolcholder7955]

Mr. "Tommy" was doing it. GB. who else? ;-)......

[@simonmason8582]

Shame to read what Alan West did after that event.

[@JeBeNL]

niet zo'n slimme beslissig van Veronica ( Gebr. Verweij)....dit betekende het begin van het einde inz. de zeezenders voor de Ned. kust. De Ned. regering begon hierdoor echt te werken aan het verdrag van Straatsburg...jammer destijds...

[@donaldmcneil2480]

tried to kill all on the ship bloody terrible only trying to give us good music sad world

[@coling6750]

I actually remember this, I was listening to this from my bedroom in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough. I actually got my Mum & Dad to call the police and I remember them arriving and listening to the SOS messages from a small transistor radio I had turned up to full volume in the Hall. Seem to remember them contacting the coast guard and then disappearing. I taped hours and hours of their transmissions, sure they are in the loft somewhere 🤣🤣🤣

[@arthurvasey]

It would be “Scheveningen” that that poor chap had to pronounce - why not “Delft!?”. That’s pronounceable in any language! At least a land-based station could move all the staff out of the studio and into the street and call the fire brigade if something along these lines happened - but this is a ship in the middle of the North Sea - they don’t have a fire station on the ocean! Even if they did, they couldn’t get there quickly enough! I did read somewhere that they managed to put out the conflagration with only minimal damage - Mebo II stayed afloat and were able to resume broadcasting the next day and an emergency crew were able to properly fix her and make her seaworthy again!

[@alexfwolcholder7955]

It was " Tommy", who else... ;-( war- distructed- country all te time...