The five-man crew of the Milford Haven crabber CKS M 99 were rescued by Angle RNLI volunteers in the early hours of Wednesday 28 October after the 14m crabber hit rocks and began to sink just off Sheep Island, reports Katherine Weir.
A rescue helicopter and a pilot vessel were dispatched at 02:15hrs following numerous reports of a boat in distress. Angle RNLI volunteers launched the lifeboat Mark Mason to assist the wooden-hulled crabber CKS, which was found in shallow water off West Angle Bay.
Manoeuvring alongside, the Tamar all-weather lifeboat transferred two RNLI crewmembers with a salvage pump, as they attempted to save the vessel. However, the skipper soon decided that the fishing boat was unsafe and ordered his crew and the two RNLI volunteers to abandon the vessel into a liferaft.
Once the liferaft was clear of the sinking boat, the lifeboat recovered all five of the fishing boat’s crew, along with the liferaft, and made their way back to Milford Haven.
A spokeswoman from Milford Haven Coastguard told Wales Online: “The vessel is now at West Angle Bay waiting for the owner to tow and recover it later.”
Smith & Hutton built CKS KY 47 at Anstruther in 1973 as a 16.7m seiner/trawler for Whitby skipper George Storr, with the boat taking its name from his children, Colin and Karen Storr. On being sold to Geoff Bullus from St Ives in the late 1980s, CKS PZ 425 was converted to fish gill-nets from Newlyn. CKS was later bought by Newlyn skipper Drew Davies, before ownership passed to Waterdance Ltd in 2009. When her last netting skipper Simon ‘Sid’ Porter took over the newly-converted Sparkling Line PW 3 in March 2011, CKS was initially tied up at Newlyn before being sold to Barry Griffiths from Amlwch Port, North Wales for whelking, when re-registered BS 425.
CKS was extensively refurbished for potting earlier this year, when the vessel was shortened, with the original cruiser stern replaced by a transom, before the vessel was re-registered M 99 by new owner Tim-Bowman-Davies and his son Jake, to fish from Milford Haven.
Photograph courtesy of Martin Cavaney Photography
Read more commercial fishing news in our dedicated section…
Here’s a video of the rescue provided by the RNLI:
The five-man crew of the Milford Haven crabber CKS M 99 were rescued by Angle RNLI volunteers in the early hours of Wednesday 28 October after the 14m crabber hit rocks and began to sink just off Sheep Island, reports Katherine Weir.
A rescue helicopter and a pilot vessel were dispatched at 02:15hrs following numerous reports of a boat in distress. Angle RNLI volunteers launched the lifeboat Mark Mason to assist the wooden-hulled crabber CKS, which was found in shallow water off West Angle Bay.
Manoeuvring alongside, the Tamar all-weather lifeboat transferred two RNLI crewmembers with a salvage pump, as they attempted to save the vessel. However, the skipper soon decided that the fishing boat was unsafe and ordered his crew and the two RNLI volunteers to abandon the vessel into a liferaft.
Once the liferaft was clear of the sinking boat, the lifeboat recovered all five of the fishing boat’s crew, along with the liferaft, and made their way back to Milford Haven.
A spokeswoman from Milford Haven Coastguard told Wales Online: “The vessel is now at West Angle Bay waiting for the owner to tow and recover it later.”
Smith & Hutton built CKS KY 47 at Anstruther in 1973 as a 16.7m seiner/trawler for Whitby skipper George Storr, with the boat taking its name from his children, Colin and Karen Storr. On being sold to Geoff Bullus from St Ives in the late 1980s, CKS PZ 425 was converted to fish gill-nets from Newlyn. CKS was later bought by Newlyn skipper Drew Davies, before ownership passed to Waterdance Ltd in 2009. When her last netting skipper Simon ‘Sid’ Porter took over the newly-converted Sparkling Line PW 3 in March 2011, CKS was initially tied up at Newlyn before being sold to Barry Griffiths from Amlwch Port, North Wales for whelking, when re-registered BS 425.
CKS was extensively refurbished for potting earlier this year, when the vessel was shortened, with the original cruiser stern replaced by a transom, before the vessel was re-registered M 99 by new owner Tim-Bowman-Davies and his son Jake, to fish from Milford Haven.
Photograph courtesy of Martin Cavaney Photography
Read more commercial fishing news in our dedicated section…
Here’s a video of the rescue provided by the RNLI:
