Great Yarmouth and Gorleston's Lifeboat crew spent 13 hours at sea when they were called to help rescue a stricken yacht.

The team were paged by Humber Coastguard after the solo yachtsman on the 17' vessel Equinox became ill.

Suffering from exhaustion and confusion the sailor, who was travelling from Germany to Scarbourgh, managed to set off his Personal Location Beacon for assistance. This was picked up by Humber Coastguard and a search and rescue mission was launched.

The boat was located in the North Valiant gas field and the yachtsman was airlifted to hospital while his vessel was put under tow by a standby boat.

Coastguards paged the lifeboat crew at 1.48pm on Friday to retrieve Equinox, located 40 miles north east of Cromer - 60 miles from Yarmouth.

The all weather lifeboat Samarbeta reached the stricken vessel at 5.30pm and began towing it back to Yarmouth.

At 1.15am on Saturday the inshore lifeboat was launched to help, and took the tow of the yacht up river to Town Hall Quay.

A crewman was then put on board to help steer the yacht and the lifeboat team were met by members of Gorleston Coastguard who helped moor her.

Relief coxswain Dan Guy said: 'We were requested to launch to retrieve the yacht Equinox as it would have been a hazard to navigation and also a hazard to the gas rigs in the area.

'I'd like to thank the crew for all their efforts in spending 13 hours at sea in bringing the yacht back.'

Both lifeboats were back at the station and ready for service by 3am.