CAPTAIN CALAMITY HEADS HOME

A lone yachtsman dubbed ‘Captain Calamity’ has given up his plan to sail round Britain and is heading for home.

Stuart Hill, 58, has been dogged by problems since starting his journey from his home in Manningtree, Essex, on May 12 aboard ‘Maximum Exposure’ and is currently near Lowestoft, off the Suffolk coast.

His accident-prone journey began from Maningtree beach where he hit another boat, then had to stop twice for missing equipment to be delivered to his 14ft open boat.

Six days and 100 miles into his journey, his mast broke in high winds and Mr. Hill was towed to shore at Cromer in Norfolk.

Earlier, the lifeboat crew from Caister on the north Norfolk coast went to check on him.

A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: "His mobile phone is waterlogged and does not work and he has no form of communication.

"The lifeboat was going out on a training exercise and we asked them to go to where Mr. Hill was. He has indicated that he is going back to Essex."

Mr. Hill had restarted his 2,000-mile trip on Saturday 16 June after sleeping in his boat on the beach at Cromer for the past three weeks.