The 32 foot Madonna had been beached beside the lifeboat slip for annual maintenance and repainting but had settled awkwardly on her port side at low tide. As the tide came in, the vessel had not lifted properly and water had flooded the gunnel and deck, filling the hull.

The situation was discovered by her skipper on an early morning routine check on his vessel. He called the Seahouses lifeboat mechanic who informed the station operations manager who then paged the lifeboat crew just after 5am.

The inshore lifeboat Peter Downes was launched but all attempts with the salvage pump failed to make headway.

A number of lifeboat crew were also conveyed to the vessel, to stand on the starboard side of the boat, in an effort to lift the vessel, without success.

Meanwhile, all electronic equipment was salvaged from the vessel as a precaution.

The tide continued to rise till 5.58am (high water). Once the tide fell, the lifeboat crew returned to pump out the water in case the weight of it damaged the timber hull of the vessel. The vessel was refloated on the next high tide.

No one was injured, and there was no pollution from the incident.
Lifeboat operations manager Ian Clayton commented: "The lifeboat had launched on exercise earlier that night and we had commented on Madonna's smart new paint job, as she lay on the beach.

"There was no indication of any problem at that time. What happened was a piece of really bad luck, we all just hope there is no