Three men stranded for 8 hours in a small cabin-cruiser without power on the Solent were finally rescued in the early hours of this morning by Cowes RNLI lifeboat.
Their troubles began when their boat Trinity, an 18ft Shetland class, had gone aground on a sandbank near the entrance to Beaulieu River. Although it refloated on a rising tide the men then found they were unable to get underway because of mud in the engine.
They dropped their anchor and used a mobile phone to seek help through Solent Coastguard. After launching shortly before midnight the lifeboat carried out a search of the area; this finally proved successful through a combination of a white flare from the lifeboat and Trinity’s crew waving a torch.
Then began a slow tow against the tide to off Calshot lifeboat station, where the cabin-cruiser was secured to a buoy and the crew, believed to be from Fawley, taken ashore.
The lifeboat returned to station just after 02:00.
