Eastbourne lifeboat in overnight rescue of pair stranded 26 miles at sea

The alarm was raised when UK Coastguard received a distress call at around 11pm on Monday night (August 6) after the yacht was said to have lost propulsion offshore and was drifting helplessly between the busy shipping lanes of the English Channel.

The lifeboat rushed off to find the vessel and took it under tow – finally arriving at Sovereign Harbour at 4am the following morning.

The volunteers then tried to grab a few hours sleep before setting out for their day jobs, said a spokesperson for Eastbourne RNLI.

This came at the end of a extremely busy day for the crew – including searching for a missing person, recovering a dog at sea, and rescuing another yacht which had got tangled in fishing gear near Sovereign Harbour.

Find out more about Eastbourne Lifeboat at www.eastbournernli.org.