A fishing boat has sunk after a collision with a cargo ship off England’s North Tyneside coast.
The incident occurred at 3.40pm on Sunday afternoon (9 November) just under a mile (1.6km) north of the Tyne piers.
The skipper of the 9.9m North Shields-based trawler made a distress call after the collision with a 17,000-tonne, 81m cargo ship that had recently sailed from Blyth.
The fishing vessel was badly damaged and started taking on water, leading to flooding in the engine room, as Tynemouth RNLI reports.
Tynemouth's all-weather lifeboat with a crew of six volunteers reached the scene just five minutes after launch and attempted to save the vessel with a salvage pump.
A number of other nearby vessels also responded to the distress call. The offshore support vessel Ocean Marlin launched a daughter boat in case the fishermen needed immediate evacuation.
As the water levels inside the boat dropped, the decision was made by the lifeboat coxswain to tow the trawler back to Royal Quays Marina in North Shields, where she could be quickly lifted out of the water.
Unfortunately, once under way at a very slow speed, it became clear the boat was so badly damaged that the movement increased the water ingress.
In a final attempt to save the fishing boat, Tynemouth RNLI's inshore lifeboat was launched with an extra salvage pump. But while it was en route the trawler started to lose stability it was quickly evacuated.
The all-weather lifeboat took the fishermen back to safety at North Shields while the crew of the inshore lifeboat stayed on scene where the fishing vessel sank soon after.
Later the all-weather lifeboat returned to recover the fishing vessel's life raft, which had automatically detached and inflated but was immersed in seawater and would have become a hazard to shipping if left afloat.
A search for any other floating debris was carried out but none was found.
“This was a potentially life-threatening situation and our volunteers responded as quickly as possible,” Tynemouth RNLI spokesperson Adrian Don told Chronicle Live.
“Thanks must also go to the other vessels in the area that responded to the situation.”
