Yacht had been holed and was taking in water off St Mawes

The launch came following a radio call to HM Coastguard from a 9m catamaran with three people on board, that had been holed and was taking in water near Black Rock, in a SE force 3-4 wind.

The Severn class lifeboat 'Richard Cox Scott' launched ten minutes after being paged at 11.13am, finding the the vessel, that had been participating in the annual Falmouth - Fowey Triangle race.

The yacht was run onto the beach (Image: RNLI)

The yacht was close to rocks and listing heavily, but heading to a beach in order to be safely grounded.

As the yacht was now in shallow water, the coxswain made the decision to launch the small inflatable Y boat with two crew members on board to assess the situation.

The all-weather lifeboats salvage pump was deployed to stop the water coming into the yacht’s portside hull, however it soon became obvious that this was unable to make much difference to the amount of water still flooding the yacht and the pump was removed back to the lifeboat.

The yacht eventually succumbed to the tide (Image: RNLI)

“Our two crew members assisted the casualty to sail the yacht to Andennis Beach, St.Mawes where it was successfully beached on the sandy bottom, and anchored,” a Falmouth Lifeboat Station post said.

“The casualties were evacuated to the beach and handed over to the Portscatho Coastguard Rescue Team with the yacht being left for recovery later by Sea Wide Services who towed the vessel to Ponsharden for repair.

“Falmouth Coastguard released the lifeboat at 2.25 pm, returning to the lifeboat station at 2.50pm where it was refuelled and readied for further service.”

Charlotte Auger, 36, was at home with her husband when he alerted her to the crash.

She said: "My husband called down to me from upstairs and said 'Oh my God, a boat has crashed into the rocks'.

"We could see three guys on the boat panicking a bit as it was sinking fast.

"A passerby was on the phone and it must have been the RNLI as they turned up within ten minutes.

"It was the perfect day for boating - beautiful blue sky. They must have gotten too close to the rocks or maybe they just didn't know the local area."

Ms Auger said it did not look like anyone on board the sailing boat was injured and it had been travelling at a slow speed.

She added: "We heard the tannoy on the RNLI boat say there was damage to the hull and they're trying to pump water out. Two of the guys had been taken off the boat."
 

RNLI Photographs - RNLI / Sabrina Gent / Sara Pugh