The brand new vessel, Lady Jue was bought by skipper Rob Rennie three weeks earlier. The other men on board had chartered the 33ft fly bridge cruiser to go shark and mackerel fishing out of Swansea. RNLI spokesman Bob James said that the skipper was gutted, really upset. The specially-adapted boat, which had a top speed of 28 knots and could carry seven passengers, was powered by twin Volvo 210hp engines before it started taking on water.
James said that it’s a covered fishing boat from Swansea. They were fishing for mackerel off Worm’s Head, Rhossili, prior to going down to Lundy early this morning to do some shark fishing. Suddenly some water had come on the boat, but nothing the pumps could not control. James also informed that then a few alarms came up and they decided to head in shore. They shut an engine down because they were getting more warning lights. Then when they got about six miles off Penmaen Sands they lost another engine.
RNLI boat finds all five crew members in life jackets and they were clinging to the rail on the bow which was protruding out of the water. The RNLI boat went alongside them and got them off just in time. There was maybe two feet of the boat sticking out of the water.
The RNLI found the men after a flare was fired. As the crew helped them aboard the lifeboat, the Lady Jue slipped underwater. The RNLI returned to the boathouse at 1am.There the rescued men had a hot drink before they were taken to Swansea.
