Shrewsbury garage boss leads sea rescue drama
A garage owner from Shropshire helped tow three county sailors to safety in a dramatic night-time sea rescue after they became stranded more than three miles off the coast of Ireland.
Tony Barlow, 66, was completing the final leg of a 10-day voyage with Shropshire Offshore Sailing group from the Isle of Man to Ardglass, in Ireland, when one boat in the fleet became stranded in 6ft waves.
The engine on the crippled yacht, which was being manned by Shropshire men Cliff Parry, Neil Stonehouse and Richard Cooper, cut out at about 8.30pm.
It took Mr Barlow, who owns the Mount Service Station in Shrewsbury, and his crew-mates Mike Carter and Ian Curnow more than half an hour to locate the boat using a high powered searchlight.
After unsuccessfully trying to lash the boats together, the trio instead pulled the other group back to the marina using a long rope. Mr Barlow, who lives in Sutton Farm in Shrewsbury with his wife Nina, said the whole ordeal last Tuesday lasted about 90 minutes.
He said: "We were quite ahead of the third boat about to cross into the harbour and we had all agreed to use engines for the last leg but the weather was very choppy and rough and as soon as they had brought the sails down the engine cut out.
"A boat with no power in pitch darkness is not an ideal situation to say the least so I would imagine it was quite scary for them.
"But when your mates are stranded you don't think about it – it's just what you do – so we re-traced our tracks and after about half an hour located them.
"We could get close enough to the boat but because of the weather it was impossible to try a side tow so instead we attached a long rope from their vessel to ours and towed them in very slowly behind us."
Mr Barlow added: "It was definitely a case of grown men hugging and high-fiving each other when we finally got ashore."
