Time: 08:21 - 11:00


Bernard Matthews II
At 8.21 this morning the crew were called to a vessel called Viking which had lost all power and Communications. It was adrift approximately 12 miles to the North East of Caister Lifeboat station. We preceded at 30 knotts to the co-ordinates given by the Coastguard. On arriving on scene there was no sign of the vessel. The Coxswain then made the decision to track south as that was the way the tide would have taken them if drifting. After a few hundred Metres the Coxswain spotted what he thought look like a vessel in the Grey haze about a mile away. All the other crew confirmed this. Our boat then went down the trough of a wave and when we came back up there was no sign of the vessel. We preceded towards the last seen position and came across a debris trail in the water made up of bouys box's pallets a gas bottle and fire extinguisher.

At the end of the debris trail an arm was waving. There were three people in the water two adults and a 13 year old boy. One adult was clinging to his diving tanks the other had one arm around the boy and another on a half submerged box. The Boy was the only one wearing a Life Jacket.

We pulled alongside the casualties and pulled the boy straight out of the water. We then lowered the scramble net and helped the adults into the boat.

They had been so lucky that the boat had been spotted just before it had gone down as in those conditions it would have been very hard to find the people.

There was a good swell of 2 metres plus and squally conditions.

They were taken back to Great Yarmouth Harbour and dropped off at the Gorleston Lifeboat shed where an Ambulance was waiting. At the time of writing this all three are beleived to be fit and well.

Lifeboat returned to Station at about 11.30am

Crew were Tommy Williams in the Tractor to Launch. Paul Williams Coxswain, Jack Waitt, Paul Garrod and Jason Delf.