A 20ft fishing boat which had sprung a leak became the subject of a rescue operation off Gurnard over the weekend.
The first lifeboat on scene was Hamble’s independent lifeboat, which was already out on the Solent on exercise.
It didn’t take long for the mainland crew to discover that the leak was coming from the engine’s coolant pipe.
The elder of the 2 anglers aboard the casualty vessel was transferred to the Hamble lifeboat while his place on the fishing boat was taken by a Hamble volunteer crew member with a salvage pump. He was then joined by a crewman from Cowes RNLI lifeboat, and water began to be extracted with a bucket.
Eventually Hamble towed the fishing boat against a strong tide to Trinity Landing in Cowes – shadowed all the way by the Cowes lifeboat.
Cowes lifeboat, which had launched around 11:30 on Saturday, was away from station some 2 hours.
