St Bees RNLI rescued a yacht off the coast of Whitehaven.
The volunteer crew were called at around 10am yesterday to go to the aid of the 30ft yacht, five miles west of the town, which appeared to be suffering from a loss of power and steering.
An RNLI spokesman said: The lifeboat crew, after receiving accurate co-ordinates from the Coastguard, quickly located the vessel in poor visibility.
“As they were coming alongside the yacht they noticed that the anchor had come dislodged.
“A member of the lifeboat crew went aboard the yacht to help recover the anchor which unknown to the yacht’s skipper had broken loose from its fixings and was dragging along the sea bed.
“This was creating the feeling of loss of power and steering. The anchor was safely pulled back aboard the yacht and secured.
“Power and steering was now fully restored and the RNLI volunteers were then happy for the yacht to continue its voyage to Scotland.”
Dick Beddows, St Bees RNLI operations manager, said: “The skipper of the yacht did exactly the right thing as soon as he realised there was a problem with his boat he put out a call for help.”
