Brixham coastguard tasked the Exmouth’s all-weather lifeboat, Margaret Jean at 1.48pm on 21 May. A fishing boat with fuel blockage was adrift 17 miles south east of Straight Point with two men aboard.

Six crew volunteers with Mechanic, ‘Tommo’ Thompson and Coxswain, Tim Mock took a total of four hours to locate the troubled 22-foot vessel and tow it back to its mooring at Starcross. Tim describes the events;

‘We found the casualty boat in the middle of Lyme bay, approximately 17 nautical miles south east of Exmouth. The wind was a freshening north westerly and needless to say that at distance offshore, the sea was starting to pick up. They were at anchor, as requested by the coastguard, to eliminate any drift. The two men aboard were in good spirits, wearing lifejackets and had a good quality VHF radio. They were very appreciative of us launching to recover them back to Starcross. The boat was suffering from fuel blockage problems preventing the engine from running.’

‘Whilst these two men had the correct safety kit and knew how to use it, some pre-season maintenance of the fuel system might have prevented their predicament.’