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A STORM damaged tall ship towed into Newlyn last weekend is under investigation by the UK Border Agency.
A Penlee lifeboat with a crew of seven on board came to the rescue of Dutch Pacific Swift after she got into difficulties during storms in the Bay of Biscay.
The
two-masted and 40-metre long training ship suffered rips to all its
sails and an engine failure about 40 miles off Newlyn on Saturday night.
The
ship and its crew of four from the Caribbean and Holland alerted
Falmouth Coastguard at around 12.30am and by 1.50am the Penlee crew was
mobilised.
It took the lifeboat two hours to reach
the ship which was making her way from the Caribbean and the Azores
islands back to Holland when she ran into bad weather.
Penlee lifeboat coxswain Patch Harvey said: "It hit severe gales on
Saturday evening so the sails must have got shredded then and because
of the sea water in the tank they couldn't get it restarted.
"Their
sails were completely shredded. When we got there it was hard to tell
how big the ship really was until we had some daylight.
"I
only spoke to the Dutch skipper about our plans and once the tow was
connected I just asked them to stay clear from the ropes."
Following a five-hour tow the ship was returned to the safety of Newlyn Harbour at around 10am.
Escorted
The
two boats were escorted in by a pair of UK Border Agency vessels, known
as cutters, which normally patrol the United Kingdom border and protect
against terrorism and criminality.
They have been investigating the ship all this week.
The
Cornishman got on board one of the vessels on Monday morning but the
officials were unable to confirm their line of investigation due to
ongoing inquiries.
A spokesman for the agency
confirmed they were carrying out "a routine search of the yacht" but
were unable to confirm any other details of the investigation.
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN
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