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Burnham
Hovercraft Home Page > Burnham Hovercraft
News Archive
Published:
June 10, 2007
Yacht
runs aground, prompting launch of Burnham rescue hovercraft
Burnham-On-Sea's
rescue hovercraft was called out on Sunday evening (June 10th)
after a yacht ran aground on Stert Island with two crew onboard.
Coastguards
were unable to communicate with the vessel, called Jakandy Fudge,
by radio and wanted to be sure its crew were safe.
 Since
the yacht was stranded far above the water line, The Spirit Of
Lelaina hovercraft provided the safest way to reach the vessel.
Burnham
Coastguard Station Officer Steve Bird said: "A fishing boat
had first reported the yacht had run aground and attempted to
pull it free without success."
"After
Coastguards were unable to contact the yacht by radio, we felt
it was essential to check whether the crew were safe and establish
whether the vessel would be safely able to refloat on the next
tide."
 "The
Spirit Of Lelaina flew two Coastguards to the scene to investigate
who, after discussions with the man and woman onboard, concluded
they were both safe."
Hovercraft
Senior Pilot Pete Charles said: "With the yacht completely
out of the water and an ebbing tide, we were happy to help."
Mr
Bird added: "It should be noted that it is often perfectly
safe for yachts to run aground providing that the crew onboard
contact Coastguards to let them know they are not in any difficulty."
This
was the third call-out in a week for BARB, the charity that runs
Burnham's two recsue hovercrafts, following two incidents at Brean
where a deer became trapped
in mud and a 20-year-old
man was briefly trapped in mud.
RELATED
LINKS:
Online video coverage
of this incident
Official BARB Web site home page
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