Grace Jones was no where to be seen on Friday when ‘May Day’ was hailed from a boat that starred in a James Bond film, but the RNLI were quickly on scene after a serious engine fire broke out.
Yarmouth RNLI were tasked to assist the classic motor launch ‘Here and Now’ at 15:20 on Friday afternoon when the vessel developed a serious engine fire off Lymington. The volunteer lifeboat crew quickly reached the stricken vessel, which was already under tow by the Lymington RNLI Lifeboat with those on board having been safely transferred to another vessel.
Escorted by the Yarmouth Lifeboat, the damaged motorboat was towed back into Lymington and checked over by the awaiting Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service before being strapped alongside Yarmouth lifeboat so that her salvage pump could be used to pump out all the residual water.
The motorboat was then immediately lifted out of the water by Lymington Yacht Haven to prevent her from sinking as a result of the damage sustained in the fire.
Paul Fairall, owner of Southampton based Here and Now for the last thirty years, revealed to the Yarmouth RNLI that the boat had an illustrious past, having featured in a boat chase in the Bond film ‘From Russia with Love’ in 1963 and having won a prize in the 1962 Cowes Torquay Powerboat Race.
