St Mary’s RNLI frees catamaran held fast to the seabed off Scilly

A day out sailing around the Isles of Scilly turned into a slow, careful operation on the evening of 9 August, after a catamaran carrying four people ended up effectively pinned to the seabed off St Mary’s.

Held fast off Peninnis Head

The St Mary’s RNLI crew were paged at 4.40pm and sent to a position two nautical miles south-south-west of Peninnis Head. A 13-metre sailing catamaran with four people on board had snagged fishing gear in both its port propeller and its rudder. The tangle disabled the steering and, with the tide running, left the boat “moored” to the bottom and unable to move.

Trying to free the gear

When the lifeboat reached the scene, its small Y boat was launched so two crew could look at the problem from water level and see whether the gear could be cleared by hand. The tension on the rope made that impossible, with no slack anywhere in the line.

The crew then ran a towline from the bow of the lifeboat to the bow of the catamaran and edged it very slowly into the wind so the sails could be dropped. Keeping the towline under tension gave them just enough slack in the fishing gear to cut it away. That freed the catamaran, but a length of rope was still jamming the rudder.

The tow back to St Mary’s harbour

To deal with the fouled rudder, the crew passed over the pennants to add to the original towline, then transferred the tow to the stern and brought the catamaran back towards St Mary’s harbour. Outside the harbour the towline was let go, and the lifeboat came alongside to manoeuvre the catamaran into a space where it could anchor up.

No damage to the boat

A diver was called out and has since freed the remaining rope, reporting no damage to either the propeller or the rudder. It was the 16th shout of 2025 for the station. The RNLI volunteers on the call were Pete Hicks, Dan Moulson, Dan May, Ben Jenkins, Arran Humphries and Arche Hicks.

📷Credit: St Marys RNLI Lifeboat Station