Charter boat holed below waterline

Launch No: 178
Craft: Spirit of the Dart. D-702
Monday, 8 July 2013
Location: Dartmouth Harbour

The Alucia, a 31 ft. motor cruiser on a day charter, was returning to Dartmouth from a coastal trip when she hit a rock off Coombe Point at 17:50. She had a 30 cm. gash below the waterline and rapidly took on water. The skipper put out a MayDay and several local craft responded, including the Dart RNLI inshore lifeboat which launched in a record breaking four minutes. Guy Savage was the first to reach her in his RIB as she attempted to make harbour under her own power. He took the four passengers onboard, one of whom had bruised his chest and was later assessed by an Ambulance crew. At Dartmouth Castle her engine failed and the inshore lifeboat set up a tow. As the Alucia was settling fast they towed her into Warfleet Creek where she was beached with the water up to her gunwales. The RNLI shore crew brought their tractor and a salvage pump from the lifeboat station a mile away. The boat was winched further ashore by the tractor, assisted by the Dart Harbour Authority RIB which had brought a second pump. A local householder supplied items to temporarily plug the hole and the lifeboat crew shored her up and stayed on scene until she had settled. It is planned that she should be patched overnight. Additional photos will be added to the Launches in the Photo Gallery on this site. Lifeboat crew. Chris Tracey helmsman. Lee Darch and Yorkie Lomas crew. Shore crew. Pete Callis tractor driver. Jerry Gilby crew.

Time

Request Received 5:50pm
Time at incident Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 2.8333333333333335 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 2 hour, 50 minutes
Time to recovery Deprecated: Implicit conversion from float 3.1666666666666665 to int loses precision in /home/dartlifeboatorg/public_html/launches-detail.php (line 272) 3 hour, 10 minutes
Back on Service 9:10pm

Conditions

Sea/River State Calm
Wind Direction East
Wind Strength 4-6 knots

Lifeboat Crew

Shore Crew

Deputy Launch Authority

Station address

RNLI Dart Lifeboat Station
Coronation Park
North Embankment
Dartmouth
Devon TQ6 9RR

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