A crew transfer vessel has been towed back to port by a lifeboat after suffering mechanical difficulties while on route to the Burbo Bank offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay off the coast of England.
The Hoylake lifeboat was requested to launch by the UK Coastguard at 8.26pm on 16 September after the 21-metre CTV with seven people on board lost propulsion after a rope had fouled its jet drives, RNLI said.
The catamaran was making slow progress into the Mersey with reduced power after earlier attempts by another vessel to establish a tow line had been unsuccessful, the RNLI added.
Hoylake RNLI launched the Shannon class lifeboat Edmund Hawthorn Micklewood, which escorted the CTV for a distance until its engines had to be shut down just off Crosby.
The damaged vessel’s skipper then asked for his boat to be taken under tow by the lifeboat as it was now drifting in the Mersey’s busy shipping channel, RNLI said.
The lifeboat then towed the vessel into the river where they waited together for access to the Liverpool dock system through Langton Lock.
After other commercial marine traffic had left the lock, at 11.30pm the lifeboat brought the wind farm boat through the lock and into Canada Number two Dock where it was berthed safely onto the quayside, RNLI said.
Hoylake RNLI Coxswain Andy Dodd said: “Our Shannon class lifeboat’s manoeuvrability really proved its worth in towing this large vessel into the River Mersey and through the Liverpool dock system.”