By a County Press reporter
Thursday, August 30, 2012
TWO French yachtsmen were rescued in a joint effort between Yarmouth RNLI lifeboat and Solent Coastguard off the Isle of Wight yesterday afternoon (Wednesday).
Solent Coastguard received a distress call that a crewman had fallen overboard from a yacht at 3.34pm, near the Needles, and so scrambled the rescue helicopter and the lifeboat.
The yacht was located in Hurst Narrows, near the The Needles, and was escorted into Cowes.
None of the French crew were injured.
Steven Mann, of Solent Coastguard, said: "We connected our radios to the French phone system to enable our French counterparts to communicate directly with the casualty vessel using the needles channel 16 aerial.
"We found out that there were two people aboard the yacht, one of which had fallen in the water with his lifejacket on and was fortunately connected to a lifeline, he had been recovered to the boat but had hit his head.
"With the assistance given by the French coastguard it all helped to bring about a quick and successful conclusion to this incident."