Barrow Lifeboat Station’s volunteer crew launched their all-weather lifeboat yesterday evening to go to the aid of a fishing vessel which had broken down due to fuel problems in the East Irish Sea.
The request for assistance came from the HM Coastguard base in Holyhead, at 8:35pm. The information received was that a 42-foot (13 metre) fishing vessel, with three people on board, had broken down approximately eight miles north-west of the Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm.
The crew was paged and the all-weather lifeboat ‘Grace Dixon’ was launched at 9pm under the command of Coxswain, Shaun Charnley, assisted by six crew.
A Barrow RNLI spokesman said: “The lifeboat proceeded to the casualty at full speed taking just under an hour to reach the scene.
“The stricken vessel was then taken under tow and at the request of HM Coastguard, the intention was to tow it back to Fleetwood where the vessel is registered. However, given the draught of the vessel and with no suitable mooring available near Fleetwood the decision was taken to tow the vessel towards Barrow and place it on the RNLI mooring close to the lifeboat station.
“With the casualty vessel safely on the mooring, and after a six-hour task, the Barrow lifeboat returned to the boathouse at 2:55am where it was cleaned and made ready for the next launch.
“HM Coastguard stated that they would request Fleetwood RNLI to launch their all-weather lifeboat, ‘Kenneth James Pierpoint’ today (Friday 2 August 2019) to tow the vessel back to Fleetwood.”
The wind at the time of the incident was north-westerly, Force 3, and the high tide was at 12:40am with a height of 9.5 metres.
