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Portpatrick Lifeboat Saves 3 Sailors

THREE sailors were plucked to safety in a dramatic sea rescue after their yacht foundered on the rocks at Portpatrick Harbour on Saturday.

The three men, Robert Mason (60), Douglas Martin (54) and Glen Taylor (age unknown), all from Whitehaven in Cumbria, were sailing home on Saturday after buying the 35 foot yacht ‘Starry Night’ in Ardrossan.

The crew, believed to be experienced sailors, ran into difficulties four miles north of Portpatrick where there were wind-speeds of up to force six.

The Portpatrick lifeboat was launched and once on the scene, Coxwain Robert Erskine decided to send two crew members in the lifeboat’s inflatable dinghy to pass a tow-rope to the stranded yacht.

After several attempts to free the vessel from the rocks failed, the Coxwain took the decision to get the three men off of the yacht.

Speaking about the rescue, Mr Erskine described the crewmen’s plight on board the stricken yacht as “precarious”. He said:

“This goes down as three lives saved. The men could quite easily have drowned.

“There was a swell of around two-and-a-half metres as they were getting off the boat and the lifeboat crew were up to their shoulders in water during the rescue.

“Without the lifeboat there, there would have been no way that the yacht’s crew could have got ashore. It was a lucky escape.”