Five escape safely as vessel drifts onto rocks off Charmouth

LYME Regis lifeboat crew took part in two public displays yesterday (Sunday) and in between, saved a speedboat which had drifted on to the rocks.

Harbourmaster Grahame Forshaw - who is also the volunteer lifeboat operations manager - spotted the broken down, 17 foot speedboat drifting off Black Venn, east of Lyme Regis just after the RNLI crew had finished a display as part of Carnival week in the town.

The speedboat was found on the rocks with no sign of occupants. Coastguards told the lifeboat crew that the boat’s owner was on his way back to the vessel after walking to Charmouth to use a phone to raise the alarm. He told coastguards there had been four men and a ten year old boy on board.

The Lyme Regis RNLI lifeboat returned to harbour to collect another crew member so that they could use a salvage pump to empty the waterlogged speedboat.

The semi-submerged speedboat was then towed, with some difficulty, by the lifeboat crew to Lyme Regis harbour.

After checking that all five people originally aboard the speedboat were safe, the RNLI volunteer crew went on to give another display at West Bay along with a lifeboat from Weymouth and the coastguard helicopter.