I was approached to portray this scene by my client. He wanted to portray this scene from this angle as it was his personal viewpoint.
He was on a yacht with his father and two friends, travelling from the Netherlands when half-way across the North Sea a powerful storm hit them.
Three of the four were washed overboard and swept away, leaving a friend on the yacht. Fortunately, the father was holding his mobile phone and somehow managed an SOS before it was dropped. Amazingly the Leconfield SAR SeaKing managed to find my client and his father, just in the nick of time. The guy on the yacht was rescued by the RNLI.
Obviously there was no reference photography for the conditions, but I had a very good description from my client. After a couple of tweaks I got the conditions right. Some of my own reference photography (of the SeaKings at Leconfield) came in handy.
A bitter-sweet painting, as my client was very pleased with the result: it does show the rescue well, but there’s a sadness, as not all were rescued.
Prints were made of the painting, to thank those who were part of the rescue.