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A Royal Navy helicopter from HMS Seahawk has rescued five
people who had been drifting in a life raft off the coast
of Britain for a week.
The four men and one woman had been sailing from Kenmare
Bay in the Republic of Ireland to Cherbourg in France via
the Scillies when their ketch, Inis Mil, got into difficulties,
around two-thirds of the way to the islands.
The crew are reported to have eventually climbed into a 6ft
by 4ft life raft and set fire to the foundering yacht to
attract attention, but the plan failed and the five drifted
for days to the west of Cornwall, covering some 90 miles.
A search had already been initiated at the weekend after
the wife of one of the sailors contacted the emergency services.
She had become concerned when the yacht failed to reach its
destination.
Contact had been lost with the yacht on September 6, but
sweeps of the sea failed to spot the crew or the ketch, a
converted fishing boat, which is believed to have sunk.
Eventually one of the marooned sailors saw what appeared
to be wind generators on a coast, and the group used their
last working mobile phone to call 999 and alert the Coastguard
to their plight, describing the coastline to the contact
ashore.
The Falmouth Coastguard worked out that it was probably in
an area between Padstow and Newquay, and a Sea King from
771 Naval Air Squadron, based at RN air station at Culdrose
near Helston, was despatched, along with the Padstow lifeboat,
using the mobile phone signal as a guide.
The life raft was spotted around three miles off Trevose
Head, and the five marooned sailors were winched to safety
by the Navy aircraft.
The yacht's skipper was detained in the Royal Cornwall Hospital
at Truro overnight for observation, but the other four crew
members were released, having been treated for exhaustion
and dehydration.
They were said to be in very good shape considering the battering
they had received by storms and high seas while in the life
raft, and the fact that they had run out of drinking water.
Aircraft captain Lt Roger Brook said: “Naturally we
were apprehensive about what we would find and were very
concerned for the health of the crew, so it was an enormous
relief when we located the life raft and saw people waving.
Considering their ordeal they were in good spirits and appeared
in reasonably good condition and once on board the helicopter
expressed their gratitude and relief at being rescued.”
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