Minehead’s volunteer RNLI crew swung into action on Saturday afternoon following a distress call from a yacht six miles northwest of Foreland Point.

The skipper reported to coastguards he was running low on fuel on his voyage to Portishead.

Twenty minutes after the station’s Atlantic 85 had put to sea a further call was received from the vessel reporting that its engine had stopped.

The Minehead crew located the casualty and took it in tow, later handing the tow over to Ilfracombe’s all-weather lifeboat which guided it to a mooring in the North Devon port.