118. Remembering the Bonita: Nils Fosstveit

Nils Fosstveit takes us back to the night he’ll never forget – and to what was, at the time, the biggest Channel rescue since the Second World War

13 December, 1981: in hurricane-force winds, cargo ship – the Bonita – was sinking off the Channel Islands. 27-year-old Nils Fosstveit was one of 36 crew on board. Not all would survive. Nils did, but in his own words, it was by ‘very small margins’.

At one point, losing hope, he and other crew members had thought about voluntarily sliding down the badly listing ship and giving themselves up to the freezing waters. But the crew rallied. Before his escape, Nils, along with others, had to haul an injured man down ladders by rope. Nils then had to jump 15m into the sea. He was one of the last off.

In the first of two episodes dedicated to the Bonita, hear Nils’s account of one of the RNLI’s finest rescues.

Next, listen to the second episode, where Michael Scales – the late coxswain onboard the lifeboat that went to the aid of Bonita – recalls the momentous rescue. Find out more about the Bonita in this short film.

200 Voices is produced by Adventurous Audio for the RNLI   

Interview by Adventurous Audio

Soundtrack composed and performed by Jon Nicholls   

The RNLI is a charity celebrating 200 years of saving lives at sea - find out more at RNLI.org/200