Thanks to George for this update – Ed.
A Sunday morning exercise turned into the real thing for the crew of Cowes RNLI lifeboat, when it quickly answered a call to go to the aid of an ocean racer.
Solent coastguards reported that the Arcona 37 class, Arcadian, had engine trouble in the Solent. At the time Cowes lifeboat, with Simon Hawkins at the helm, was exercising just inside the River Medina.
Entangled spinnaker
The lifeboat found the yacht, with six men and a woman aboard, near Browndown Buoy, off Stokes Bay. It was slowly drifting helplessly astern in the Force 4/5 south-westerly. The mainsail was still up and the spinnaker had become entangled at the top of the mast. To further add to the yacht crew’s woes, the anchor was failing to hold on the sea-bed, and later became entangled in a lobster pot rope.
Lifeboat crew member Steve Price went aboard to assist bringing down the mainsail and help winch one of the yachtsmen up the towering mast to free the spinnaker. Eventually the yacht, which had earlier been in a race, was able to return to its Hamble base under its own engine power, escorted by Cowes lifeboat.
Since the start of the year Cowes lifeboat had attended 18 ‘shouts’, involving the rescue of nearly 40 people.
