A sailing crew was airlifted to safety after their yacht started to sink.

Lifeboats and a rescue helicopter were called out to the struggling vessel, which had run into trouble about four miles off Jaywick at 1.45pm yesterday (Sunday).

The 44ft yacht, named Acis, started taking in water and the crew had become cold and wet.

A helicopter took three of them to Colchester General Hospital and lowered a pump to suck out the water so the yacht could sail back to shore.

The Walton lifeboat was called to assist the rescue and the Acis sailed to Brightlingsea with two of the crew from Clacton aboard.

Chris Finn, from Thames Coastguards at Walton, said: "We heard the word 'mayday' on the radio, that's all we heard. We called them back but there was no response."

Fortunately another yacht was close by the vessel and so picked up more of the details and passed them on to coastguards.

The skipper said he thought he had about 30 minutes before the yacht started to sink.

The three crew were then winched from the lifeboat to the helicopter, and flown to hospital where they were treated for shock and cold before being released.

The skipper stayed with the boat and helped it back into Brightlingsea.

All the crew and the yacht's skipper were from south Essex.

By Mark Beales

Reporter's e-mail: mark_beales@thisisessex.co.uk

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