Chris Craven and two friends, Anne-Marie Coyle and John Clark, were passaging from Plymouth to Dartmouth in Chris’s new rib when they heard a Pan Pan Call on channel 16 on their VHF radio.

Pan Pan is an emergency call to say that the vessel is in urgent need of assistance but that, for the time being, there is no risk to life or the vessel itself.

A yacht called Willpower had engine failure was drifting with no wind onto the rocks east of the Mewstone.

Anne-Marie said: “We were able to quickly divert from where we were by Castle Ledge buoy and find the yacht the other side of the Mewstone.

“They were 5 to 10 meters off the rocks, no wind with just the genoa up and no engine. They were drifting onto the rocks. We managed to get a line to the vessel.

“The Harbour Master had he said on the radio that he couldn’t pick up a tow outside the Castle Ledge Buoy. So we towed it in and handed the tow to the Harbour Master inside Castle Ledge.

“As radio coverage was poor, the coastguard was struggling to keep up with comms, so RNLI boat also turned up. As we had the more powerful boat, 450hp, and the tow-line attached, they watched and left.

“Chris has just bought the rib for his new business he is launching in Foss Street, Marine X-ped which will offer river rides and two-day survival courses amongst other things. He’s a Dartmouth boy and went to school with most of the crowd in the Dolphin.”