A sailing boat and its crew of three were rescued in the Irish Sea on Tuesday evening after fourteen hours adrift in deteriorating conditions. The vessel, the Cormorant, was located by a coastguard rescue ship approximately 35 kilometres west of the Welsh coast. All three crew members were unharmed and were taken to Milford Haven for medical checks as a precaution.
When the coastguard vessel reached the Cormorant, the situation on board was serious. The engine had broken down twelve hours earlier, leaving the boat with no means of propulsion. A storm, which had passed through the area overnight, had damaged the radio antenna, making normal communication impossible. The crew had been left with only a handheld emergency beacon and two flares.
By the time the rescue team arrived, the crew had already used both flares — one in the early morning and one approximately two hours before the rescue ship appeared. They had also run out of food the previous day. The boat had drifted more than 20 kilometres off its planned course, carried eastward by the tidal current. One crew member, experienced sailor Rhian Davies, 47, had managed to transmit a single short distress message just before the radio failed completely. The coastguard station at Holyhead had received the signal and had dispatched the rescue vessel within fifteen minutes.
"By the time we spotted them, they had been drifting for fourteen hours," said coastguard officer Martin Farrell. "Conditions were not ideal, but they had done everything right. They had stayed with the boat, they had used their signals well, and they had kept calm."
An investigation into the cause of the engine failure is expected to begin next week.