Red Bay RNLI crew rescue yacht

The crew were paged last Friday (12 September) at 18.55.

A lone sailor who was sailing his 22ft yacht from Portrush to Bangor got into difficulty in strong tides off the North Antrim coast.

The sailor had left Portrush at 7am and requested assistance from Belfast Coastguard that evening after he was unable to make any headway in the seas.

The Lifeboat had difficulty locating the vessel due to fog and the fact that the tides had pushed the boat some four miles off course, south of Rathlin Island.

The lifeboat crew towed the boat to Cushendall arriving at 21:45.

RNLI spokesman Paddy Mc Laughlin commented: “The call was make more difficult due to the strong tides and fog but we were able to locate the sailor using or on board VHF direction finding equipment and radar.”

The volunteer lifeboat crew from Cushendall have been kept busy over the past few months answering 22 emergency calls off the North Antrim coast.