A yacht had to be towed in by Wells RNLI lifeboat last night after it suffered engine problems and ran aground in the harbour approaches.

The yacht, Summer Wind of Portsmouth, had been travelling from Bridlington to the south coast and wished to stopover in Wells. On approach to the Harbour, the yacht suffered engine failure and the skipper, who was sailing single handed on an ebbing tide, was forced to contact the Coastguard for assistance.

Wells Inshore Lifeboat was paged at 10:47pm and launched at 11:00pm, arriving on the scene four minutes later.

The lifeboat crew found that the yacht had run hard aground and would not be able to be re-floated until the morning tide.

They then proceeded to lay the anchor out to secure the yacht, make it watertight and take the skipper ashore to the boathouse.

At 3:50am on the next tide, the crew returned to the casualty and shortly after the yacht was re-floated. Repair attempts were made to the engine, but ultimately it would not take any load. It was decided that the yacht would be towed into Wells harbour and moored in the outer harbour. No one was hurt in the incident.

In a statement from Wells Harbour, spokesman, Simon Blakeley, advised, 'Visiting vessels entering Wells Harbour should contact them either by phone or on VHF channel 12 prior to making an approach, especially during the hours of darkness. There is a free pilot service into the harbour. Contact details can be found in the nautical almanac, also online at the Wells Harbour web site.'

'We are here to help,' he added.