The rescue

Yesterday lunchtime we watched as a small yacht foundered right in front of us. We'd seen it come up the river towing a dinghy but its sail just didn't look right. As it hit the choppy maelstrom at the river mouth it really began to look in trouble. It got out of the river mouth and we realised that the sail had come adrift and was flapping madly in the strong gusty wind. It seemed like someone was in the dinghy, maybe they were trying to reattach the sail or something. but then to our horror we saw the dinghy was turned over in the water. We were just wondering if the coastguard or the life guards had seen them  when we were relieved to see the little orange dinghy of the lifeguards making their way out to the yacht. Over the next hour it was obvious this was a tricky rescue. The yacht was foundering in the surf as the tide was going down.  The little lifeguard dinghy took off two people but another couple stayed on board for a while. The larger lifeboat came out and conferred with the lifeguards. Eventually they managed to get the flapping large sail down and put down an anchor, took the remaining people off and abandoned the yacht to the waves.

Today the salvage operation started. The liffle lifeguard dinghy was there and a tug from the harbour. At high tide they managed to pull the yacht back into harbour.

We were thankful no-one appeared to get hurt but were fascinated to see the rescue unfold before us.