Yacht sinks off Littlehampton coast

EMERGENCY teams from Littlehampton have this afternoon been attempting to salvage a yacht which sank yesterday evening (May 12).
By Tom Cotterill
Published 12th May 2015, 14:57 BST
An operation is taking place to recover a yacht which sank off the coast of Littlehampton PHOTO: Eddie MitchellAn operation is taking place to recover a yacht which sank off the coast of Littlehampton PHOTO: Eddie Mitchell
An operation is taking place to recover a yacht which sank off the coast of Littlehampton PHOTO: Eddie Mitchell

Littlehampton RNLI had initially been called about the stricken vessel late last night, shortly after 11pm.

A crew from the town’s lifeboat station, in Fisherman’s Quay, was launched to investigate the craft, which was located near the harbour entrance of the River Arun.

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No-one was discovered on the vessel. However, crews inspecting it found that the yacht’s anchor had been deployed and that much of the front cabin was underwater.

A spokesman for the RNLI said: “The Coastguard advised the lifeboat crew that they were going to phone the owner of the vessel as it was suspected to have been connected with an incident earlier in the day.

“The Coastguard confirmed that the yacht had sunk at 4.30pm off Middleton on-route to the Solent. The crew had got off and the vessel was abandoned. The anchor had dragged in the tide and the yacht ended up a quarter of a mile south east of the harbour entrance.”

As there were no lives at risk, the lifeboat team was stood down.

The Littlehampton Harbour Board was informed about the sunk yacht and has been part of an operation to recover the craft today.