Four men stranded on a boat for 12 hours rescued by Selsey RNLI

The UK coastguard received a call at 5.16am on July 19 from a boat stating that the occupants had run out of fuel.

An all-weather lifeboat was requested to search for the 20ft vessel, and despite the men believing they were only two miles off the coast, it was discovered that they were 5 miles south east of Selsey.

A spokesperson from the RNLI said: “After searching between Selsey and Bognor, two possible targets were approached and quickly discounted.

“At 6.05am the mechanic on the lifeboat called their mobile and asked if they had the app on any of their phones to give them a GPS position, and at 6.12am a screen shot of their position was sent back to the mechanic.

“This showed their position as five miles south east of Selsey and also the mobile had seven minutes of battery left.”

Once the four men in the sports boat were found, it was discovered they had left Littlehampton Harbour at 6pm on Monday evening.

The vessel had no VHF radio, flares, lifejackets or warm clothing.

Then men were then checked over, given survivors lifejackets, and then were taken back to Littlehampton for 7.30am.

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.

1) Make our website your homepage at www.chichester.co.uk/

2) Like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ChichesterObserver

3) Follow us on Twitter @Chiobserver

4) Register with us by clicking on ‘sign in’ (top right corner). You can then receive our daily newsletter AND add your point of view to stories that you read here.

And do share with your family and friends - so they don’t miss out!

The Chichester Observer - always the first with your local news.

Be part of it.