A BOAT trip from Minehead almost ended in disaster for a party of elderly passengers when the coach taking them back to the town crashed on a hairpin bend at the bottom of Lynmouth Hill on Monday evening. Two of the passengers and a pedestrian were injured when the vehicle ploughed into an embankment wall as it failed to make the final bend on the notoriously steep hill. The injured from the coach suffered suspected fractures, while the pedestrian, a woman, is believed to have been struck by the metal roadside barrier demolished in the accident. The collision sent blocks of masonry tumbling more than 40ft into the beer garden of the Village Inn below, which was empty at the time, with yet more pieces falling through the pub's kitchen roof. The daytrippers had set sail from Minehead earlier in the day aboard the paddle steamer Waverley, bound for Lundy Island. The boat had gone on to Ilfracombe and the coach party was being taken back to Minehead when the accident happened. The vehicle is now in the hands of the Devon and Cornwall police accident investigation team.