Lifeboat crews in Norfolk worked together to rescue passengers onboard a 37ft cruiser in difficulty off the beach at Ostend.

Happisburgh RNLI volunteers were paged by HMC Humber at 1.50pm on Wednesday, July 26 after a cruiser lost power and was being pushed towards the beach and groynes with two people onboard.

Russell Pickering, Happisburgh's D-class lifeboat, was made ready and launched at 2pm, with Chris Risby at the helm and he was joined by Peter Walker and Ellis Speirs.

Once they arrived alongside the cruiser, the crew discovered both passengers on board were well and wearing lifejackets.

Mr Risby assessed the situation and, with the cruiser being pushed towards the beach and groins, he decided to attach a tow.

The crew was able to tow the cruiser away from the beach to around one mile out to sea into calmer conditions.

They would not have been able to safely tow the vessel to a port, so they called HMC Humber and requested a larger lifeboat.

Caister Lifeboat was tasked to take the tow on and Happisburgh Lifeboat was able to keep the cruiser in a safe position until they arrived on scene.

The tow was handed over to them to take the cruiser to Lowestoft.

At 5pm, the Caister Lifeboat had passed Caister en route to Lowestoft.

The Russell Pickering lifeboat returned to the station at 3.15pm and was cleaned and refuelled.

Mr Risby said: "It was great to help people in trouble - the whole crew worked well together and it is nice to work with other lifeboat crews."