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Yarmouth Lifeboat Helps Drifting Boat In Rough Seas Off The Isle Of Wight

Yarmouth Lifeboat was called to help a drifting boat in rough seas, off the Isle of Wight.

Yarmouth’s Severn class all weather lifeboat, Eric and Susan Hiscock (Wanderer), was tasked to launch by HM Coastguard at 2.20pm yesterday (Thursday) to reports of a boat drifting, south west of Bramble Bank.

Launching in challenging weather conditions with wind gusts exceeding 50 knots, Yarmouth RNLI’s volunteer crew headed east towards Cowes.

While on route, they established that the vessel they were searching for was a 24 foot cabin cruiser.

Initially, hampered by poor visibility, the lifeboat crew struggled to locate the vessel that had travelled east on the flooding tide. The drifting motorboat was eventually located close to the shore at Lee-on-the-Solent.

The all weather lifeboat transferred a crew member to the stricken vessel to assess the situation, they found no one on board, and a tow was established to take the boat to safety.

With rough seas of up to a four-metre swell, it was not possible to tow the casualty into a flooding tide against a gale force south-westerly.

Based on the weather conditions, it was decided that Portsmouth was the nearest safe harbour and the cabin cruiser was brought safely alongside in Haslar Marina.

HM Coastguard were able to make contact with the owner and Yarmouth RNLI understand that there was no one on board when the boat, believed to be from Cowes, had broken free of her mooring.

Yarmouth Lifeboat returned to her berth and was ready for service at 5.05pm

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