Mariners are being warned about the sea worthiness of their boats after a rescue was launched on Sunday night.

At around 5.15pm a call was received by the Marine Operations Centre in Douglas from the owner of a small inflatable boat drifting around two miles off Cornaa beach, south of Maughold Head.

An ill-equipped inflatable with three adults aboard had launched from Cornaa beach at around 3pm but suffered engine failure soon afterwards.

Due to the increasing west-north-west wind the occupants were unable to return to shore and were soon drifting into rougher seas.=

The owner, who had only purchased the inflatable that morning, managed to make a call with his mobile phone to raise the alarm. The vessel had no lifesaving equipment, and the three occupants were becoming increasingly cold as they were dressed only for a short trip close to shore.

Ramsey RLNI was paged at 5.35pm, launched at 5.46pm and proceeded to the approximate position given by the casualty.

Due to increasing wind and sea conditions it took great effort by the crew to spot the small blue and white target, but by 6.21pm the casualty vessel - which by this time was beginning to deflate - was alongside the lifeboat around two nautical miles offshore.

Once the three extremely cold casualties were aboard the lifeboat their inflatable was lifted aboard for the trip back to the beach. On arrival at Cornaa it was found that a glued seam had failed on the inflatable and it was unusable.

Director of Harbours Mark Kenyon said that although anyone can be caught out by mechanical failure, he was extremely disappointed that this particular incident should have occurred.

He added: ’Only recently extensive guidance notes and media releases were issued by the Harbours Division concerning the safe use of pleasure craft and this was clearly an example of how not to do things.

’I cannot emphasis enough the importance of preparation and awareness especially since the vessel had only been acquired earlier that day.

’These three people are very lucky to be alive. The only thing that saved them was a poor signal on a nearly flat mobile phone and even this may not have been enough if the glued seam had failed a few minutes earlier.’