MAYDAY – IT’S US AGAIN

Liverpool Coastguard received a Mayday call after an unlucky family were rescued from the sea twice in just two days.

Retired Frank and Jean Lester and their son Stephen, 43, were left drifting in the sea on Sunday 24 June 2001 when the engines failed on their vessel ‘Sundancer’ three miles offshore after a day's fishing.

Two lifeboats from St Bees and Haverigg were launched to rescue them.

The Haverigg crew picked them up and left their boat at Drigg because the tides were too strong to tow it back to Ravenglass.

But early on Monday 25 June, Frank and Stephen took another boat ‘Anji’ out to retrieve the ‘Sundancer’ from Drigg, calamity struck again.

The ‘Anji's’ engine blew as Stephen tried to tow his dad and ‘Sundancer’ back into Ravenglass and another Mayday call went out to the coastguards sparking rescue number two.

The same lifeboat crews turned out again to tow both vessels to safety.

The family has had to be rescued twice before, once last year with engine failure, and another time when their £6,000 van was submerged by the sea and ruined when the brakes jammed and the family could not move it before the tide came in.

Ian McDowell, deputy captain of the St Bees lifeboat crew, said: "When we got the second call it took us a while to work out that it was the same people as the day before.

"I don't think it was their fault. I think they have just been unlucky. The things we go to are usually quite serious - looking for missing children, or trying to stop people committing suicide, so it was good to have something with a happy ending. It is quite funny really. I think the coastguard at Liverpool found it quite funny."

Frank and Jean, who are from Manchester, admitted they were unlucky.

Jean said: "We are fully-equipped, with lifejackets and a radio, and we had a back-up engine on the ‘Sundancer’, but even that failed. The lifeboat crews said we were well equipped. We would like to apologise to them for all the trouble.

The family has promised a cash donation to the West Cumbria crews who answered Mayday calls on Sunday and yesterday to rescue them from the Irish Sea.