A 20m beam trawler forced on to rocks yesterday evening at Moneypoint at the entrance to Kinsale Harbour was the scene of a rapid rescue by the Kinsale RNLI lifeboat.
The lifeboat was on the scene a few minutes after the alarm was raised, with three-metre waved breaking over the Sean Anthony’s deck.
The lifeboat crew dropped anchor and were able to veer down to within feet of the stricken trawler. The three crew were pulled from the water and taken to the Kinsale RNLI station, shaken but uninjured.
‘Our priority was to get the crew safely off the trawler, which was complicated by the breaking waves coming over the top of the boat,’ said Kinsale RNLI helm Nick Searls said. ‘We needed to manoeuvre the lifeboat in as close as possible to the stricken trawler so that the three fishermen could individually jump into the water to be recovered immediately by the lifeboat crew. The fishermen were wearing lifejackets and the operation to recover all three of them onto the lifeboat was successful.’
