Four people had to be rescued from a yacht when it ran aground on a beach in choppy seas.

Both the all-weather and inshore lifeboats from Wells were launched to go the assistance of a 27ft yacht which had run aground on High Sand at Stiffkey. The incident happened just after 5pm today.

The four people on board decided to swim for the shore.

While two of them managed to make the land, the others were still in the water when the inshore lifeboat reached them at just after 5.30pm.

The lifeboat took them on board and ferried them to the local coastguard on the beach. They were cold and wet but otherwise uninjured.

It's understood but unconfirmed that the boat, believed to have originally come from Great Yarmouth, slipped its moorings in Blakeney and then drifted on to the shore at Stiffkey.

Neither the inshore lifeboat nor the all-weather boat was able to pull her off the shore, so she was abandoned on the beach.

Both lifeboats returned to their base and arrived back at the boathouse in Wells at 6.26pm.