THE RNLI volunteer crew from Barrow Lifeboat Station performed a successful midnight operation to retrieve a fishing vessel that was taking on water.

The crew launched their lifeboat late in the evening of Sunday to perform the rescue after the fishermen issued a Mayday alert, which was received by the Coastguard base at Holyhead, at 9.50pm.

The boat in question was a 16-metre fishing vessel called 'Lady Helen'.

The Mail: The operation continued into the early hours of the morning The operation continued into the early hours of the morning (Image: RNLI Barrow)

The RNLI crew was paged and the all-weather lifeboat 'Grace Dixon' was launched at 10pm under the command of coxswain Shaun Charnley and his team of six. 

The Lady Helen was located at a position 30 miles west of Barrow and the Grace Dixon arrived on the scene at 11.15pm.

Another lifeboat from Douglas in the Isle of Man had also been requested to attend along with the Coastguard helicopter Rescue 936 from Caernarfon. 

A nearby vessel called the 'Fairline Surveyor' managed to take the five crew members off the casualty vessel to ensure they were safe and a sister vessel to the Lady Helen, the 'Anne Mary B', had sailed from Fleetwood to assist.

The Mail: The crew was safely transferred back to Fleetwood The crew was safely transferred back to Fleetwood (Image: RNLI Barrow)

Once the Barrow and Douglas lifeboats assessed the condition of the Lady Helen the crews decided that the Anne Mary B could tow the Lady Helen back to Fleetwood. 

The lifeboat stood down shortly after 2am and it returned to the Roa Island Boathouse at 3.20am where it was rehoused by the waiting shore crew and washed in preparation for the next launch.