Red Jet II nearly sinks yacht

120 passengers disembarked and returned to Cowes after passanger cat suffers engine failure

Class 6 yacht Tsunamiwas nearly sunk today at 1710 as Red Jet II, one of the Cowes Red Funnel Red Jet catamarans suffered engine failure and drifted onto a mooring. Skipper of nicoretteOla Astradsson tried to free the moored yacht from his RIB but did not have enough time before the Red Jet ran over the yacht trapping it between its two hulls. Astradsson said, "I could see the Red Jet coming in and then starting to turn into a fleet of moored yachts.

"I wondered when he was going to start to turn the boat back to the terminal, but when people started to shout and panic on the bridge I knew that something was wrong. I drove our RIB towards the mooring and tried to free the knot, but the Jet was drifting at about half a knot and I didn't have enough time to undo the boat without putting ourselves in danger. The beam hit the forestay of the yacht and it bent like a washing line. The boat went further in between the two hulls and stopped the ferry."

The Red Jet came to a stand still fortunately before moving onto the next moored boat. No injuries were sustained as 120 passengers and 4 staff were transferred ashore to Cowes in two launches. The vessel has now been towed to Southampton where it will be inspected by Red Funnel's technical staff.

The Scandinavian nicorette team are developing a reputation as the local Baywatch rescue squad for their heroic antics over the last week. On Thursday the team and their RIB came to the rescue of a man in the harbour who had been run over while in his RIB by Tony Bullimore's maxi catamaran Team Legato. The man had been thrown out of the RIB and left hanging onto the handholds while the RIB was still spinning around in the water. nicorette drove alongside the RIB to stop it from spinning and the man escaped unscathed.