YARMOUTH RNLI rescued a total of 18 people in four similar incidents during a busy weekend of call outs.
Four vessels had to be towed back to Yarmouth, starting last Friday, at around 4pm, when a 38ft sailing boat suffered machinery failure.
That was followed with two call-outs on Saturday, the first a 35ft motor cruiser, which had stopped through fuel starvation at around 5.30pm.
Then at midnight the lifeboat had to respond to a distressed yacht drifting towards the Needles in thick fog.
"It was so foggy and the coastguard couldn’t see the yacht from the top of the cliff but it got dangerously close to the rocks," said Mike Grinstead, of Yarmouth RNLI.
Finally, on Sunday, a 40ft yacht, 30 nautical miles from The Needles, had to be towed in after it was entangled with fishing equipment, causing the power and steering to fail.
"The weekend is normally our busiest time but it was particularly unusual to have four similar rescues in such a short space of time," said Mr Grinstead.
Reporter: mattw@iwcpmail.co.uk