Four men were winched to safety from a motor cruiser taking on water in the Portland Race off the South Coast last week.

The crew of the Addarwa informed the coastguard when they noticed a problem with the boat’s steering but upgraded their call to a mayday when they saw that the boat was taking on water from her bow. They were winched off by helicopter just before the lifeboat arrived.

Andy Sargent, Weymouth lifeboat coxswain, told the Bournemouth Echo: “We tried to use a portable pump to save the boat so that we could tow it in, but the decks were awash with water and there was too much so we had to let it sink.”

“We tried with the pump but with no-one on board and with the state of the vessel it was unsafe for our crews to go rooting around.”

The crew of the boat were on passage from Gosport to Dartmouth, as the owners were from Bristol. It is thought that one of the crew was the boat’s new owner.

Conditions at the time were flat seas with a westerly force 2 wind.

More pictures and video of the sinking here