HE MAY have saved a shipload of students but there's no rest for fisherman Shaun Edwards. After catching up on some much-needed sleep, the skipper of the Nova Spero is already back at sea.
Mr Edwards, of Ridgevale Lane, Gulval, is modest about the rescue of the Polish-registered Fryderyk Chopin and says it was "a team effort".
After his month-long fishing trip is over, the father-of-three and his crew plan to enjoy a tipple of the vodka given to them by the grateful embassy staff "and reflect on it all".
Despite towering waves and severe gale force 9 winds, Mr Edwards, 47, who fishes from Newlyn, insists crew members were never in danger. "I would never, ever risk my crew and my ship to help others," he stresses. "That is set in stone."
His fishing vessel, whose name means, new hope, arrived by the stricken ship late on Friday afternoon after answering a mayday call that morning.
"When we were three or four miles away, we saw her there rolling in the seas. We just looked at each other; she was much bigger than we thought she was going to be," he says.
A French fishing vessel had already tried unsuccessfully to get a tow rope onto the training ship.
Along with crew members Dicky Nudd, David Fyffe and Lewis Dymond, Mr Edwards borrowed a rope, quarter of a mile long, from one of the tankers helping to shelter the stricken Fryderyk Chopin from the wind.
To attach the tow rope, the Nova Spero, which is made of timber, had to get within 20 feet of the steel-framed ship.
"If we had been picked up by a huge sea, we would have been smashed to pieces," he says. "Of course it was dangerous because we knew we had to get it done in daylight hours. It was getting dark but we thought we would give it a go because at that time, he had no other options."
After successfully towing the Fryderyk Chopin, the second largest training brig of its kind in the world, he was delighted to reach Falmouth port on Monday morning with his young charges.
"It wasn't easy but when we got in and saw the kids, they were in good spirits," he said. "To see the boat safe, that was a big sense of achievement as a team."
Crew members of the Nova Spero were given a round of applause from the youngsters they rescued, which he called "pretty touching".
Insisting that was all the thanks he needed, Mr Edwards says he only did what any other skipper would have in his position.
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN