Four lifeboats from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) were called out to a string of incidents in terrible conditions at the weekend as the 50th Fastnet Race got underway in boat-breaking conditions.
The famous 695-mile yacht race started at Cowes in the Solent on Saturday with a record-breaking 430 racing around the Fastnet Rock, off the West Cork coast, before finishing in Cherbourg, France.
But with winds gusting up to 46mph, heavy rain and challenging seas of 4m, RNLI crews from Yarmouth, Poole, Swanage and Weymouth responded to multiple taskings by HM Coastguard throughout the opening few hours of the race with more than a quarter of entrants retiring by the end of Sunday.
As the racing fleet departed the Solent facing the full force of the weather, RNLI lifeboats were tasked with a multitude of incidents.
A yacht with two people onboard issued a distress call after it had begun taking on water.
The Yarmouth all-weather lifeboat arrived on the scene locating a liferaft with two people in it after their yacht had sunk. They were taken onboard the Yarmouth lifeboat, where they were generally well but shaken.