Crew boats to the rescue

One of the crew boats working at London Array has been praised by Thames MRCC after assisting a yacht that was aground on the Long Sand Head.

The Windspeed 4 was working onsite at London Array when the call came into our Marine Coordination office, which operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from Dover MRCC in the early hours of Tuesday 10th July giving details of a distress situation and ascertaining if we had any vessels that could assist.  Within 20 minutes Windspeed 4 had the yacht in their sites and as the first vessel on the scene the crew quickly established that there were no injuries on board, or serious damage to the vessel, and were able to pass a tow line to the yacht.  On the rising tide the Windspeed 4 pulled the yacht off the bank and into deeper water to the east of Long Sand.  Soon after the Harwich lifeboat arrived on the scene and the Windspeed 4 was released and returned to the London Array base at the Port of Ramsgate.

Another vessel was also assisted by one of the boats working at London Array on the 19th July. A fishing vessel had lost power while fishing close to the site, south-east to Kentish Knock.  The Aberfraw Bay, one of our crew vessels that was on standby in the vicinity, handed over her repsonsbilities to our other crew vessels in the area, and went to assist the fishing vessel.  It stayed on position while an anchor was being deployed and the RNLI arrived to take the vessel back to port.