Port St Mary Lifeboat Station - Callouts: 7th July 2001.
Weather: overcast / patchy rain; Visability moderate / locally poor; wind NNW 4-5
At 17:14 BST Liverpool Coastguard alerted the crew for the all weather lifeboat by pagers. 6 minutes later the Station lifeboat "Gough Ritchie II", 14-26, left her moorings to go to the aid of the 36 foot charter angling boat "Huntress" suffering engine failure with 7 persons on board some 19.5 miles to the south east of Port St Mary.
The Offshore 105 "Huntress" had left Conway earlier in the day with her skipper and a party of six anglers for a weekend wreck fishing trip, with an overnight stay in the Isle of Man. The party had fished a couple of wrecks before trying a wreck 19.5 miles south east of Port St Mary (where they were intending to stay the night). However just after 17:00 BST, after finishing fishing and starting towards harbour the engine died. Investigation of the problem by the boats skipper showed that the engines' fuel pump had failed (thus unable to pump fuel from fuel tanks to the engine). At this point he notified Liverpool Coastguard of his boats problem. Without any other assistance nearby it decided to launch the lifeboat.
The lifeboat arrived at the "Huntress" 18:15 BST and a tow line was passed. Ten minutes later the tow back to Port St Mary started.
During the three hour tow to Port St Mary the wind freshened to NNW force 5 which gave the anglers a bit of a lumpy trip in as their boat is designed to travel much faster. However, no chances could be taken with the strong point on the bow of their boat to which the towing line was attached. The skipper of the angling boat got his party of anglers to remain on deck just in the lee of the wheelhouse; this was to trim the boat so that its bow was 'light', in order to aid the ride over the waves. Other than some of the anglers getting 'damp' there were no further incidents.
After getting the "Huntress" alongside the Alfred pier, the lifeboat was back on her moorings and engines shut down just before 22:00 BST.
Edited 8-July-01