Man drowns, man and woman rescued, after yacht capsizes off Cork coast
A man missing from a yacht which capsized off west Cork has been found drowned.
A search was carried out in Roaring Water Bay for the sailor after another man and a woman who had been on the boat with him swam to shore and spent the night on an island after an accident.
the Shannon based Helicopter Rescue 117 lifted the casualties and took them to Baltimore for further medical attention.
— baltimore lifeboat (@rnlibaltimore) August 14, 2014
Lifeboat crews recovered the body of the man off Sherkin Island at about 8.20am.
The man and a woman had managed to make it to Castle Island off Schull, west Cork, before a massive air and sea search, co-ordinated by the Irish Coast Guard and involving RNLI teams, began when the group failed to make it to port as planned.
The yacht was discovered shortly after first light this morning, an RNLI spokeswoman said.
The man and woman, one believed to be aged in their 70s and the other in their 60s, were rescued by an RNLI search and rescue team on an inshore lifeboat.
Two people were found on the NW corner of Castle Island at 6:15 this morning.
— baltimore lifeboat (@rnlibaltimore) August 14, 2014
The rescued couple were airlifted from the island and taken to paramedic crews at Baltimore for initial assessment.
They are understood to be suffering the effects of hypothermia and are being taken to hospital but their conditions have not been confirmed.
Both an inshore rigid inflatable boat and an all-weather lifeboat had been conducting sea searches in Roaring Water Bay and around islands off Schull and Cape Clear, near where the accident happened.
The yacht was a Drascombe Lugger, about 18ft long, which was found upturned about one and a half miles from shore near Castle Island. The boats are popular in the area and conditions in more sheltered parts of the bay are considered ideal for vessels of this kind.
RNLI crews said they had no reports of bad weather in the area last night and although it was breezy with the wind coming from the north west there was nothing to suggest the bay was being hit by heavy seas or high winds.
