A yacht was towed to safety today after running aground off Romney Marsh.

The vessel became stuck in sand close to Littlestone and damaged its mast in the morning's bad weather.

The Dungeness Shannon-class lifeboat was tasked to assist the yacht at 8am, and launched 15 minutes later in gusts of wind up to force 7 with poor visibility.

The coxswain also contacted the UK Coastguard and requested that the Littlestone inshore lifeboat be launched to assist.

Once on scene, and after assessing the damage, a towline was thrown to the casualty vessel and set up ready for towing away from the shoreline.

Littlestone lifeboat then arrived and was able to taxi two crewmen off Dungeness lifeboat and then onto the casualty vessel.

Once the crewmen were on-board and the lifeboat had freed the yacht, a damage assessment was carried out and it was decided the vessel was in a good enough condition to tow to Dover.

Littlestone lifeboat stood down.

After approximately two hours of towing, the Dungeness lifeboat arrived in Dover harbour with the damaged yacht.

Stuart Adams, RNLI Coxswain for Dungeness RNLI Lifeboat, said: "It was a tremendous effort today by all our volunteer crew and I was pleased to see such great teamwork between Dungeness and Littlestone to bring the yacht to safety.

"Our crews have maintained their high standard of training throughout the pandemic and this could be seen in their accomplishments today."

The lifeboat arrived back at station at around 1pm.

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