A windsurfer who'd got into difficulties was rescued by Exmouth lifeboat on Thursday, June 27.

Carl Sawyer made a 999 call to the coastguard on his mobile phone at about 5.15pm after the boom on his windsurfing rig snapped and he began drifting out to sea on the outgoing tide.

The inshore lifeboat George Bearman II was launched with three volunteer crew on board. The coastguard guided them to the windsurfer's location, a few miles south of Orcombe Point, and they reached him within 15 minutes.

Carl was taken on board the lifeboat, given a quick welfare assessment and brought back to Exmouth beach.

Afterwards he posted on Facebook:  "Huge thanks and well done to the team, I took some finding out there!"

A spokesperson for Exmouth RNLI said: "We advise all water users to have the right safety equipment (minimum of buoyancy aid and method of communication) and to let someone else know where they are going and when they expect to return.

"The individual in question had followed this advice to the letter and was therefore able to quickly seek help when faced with a catastrophic equipment failure. It is for this reason that we able to find him rapidly and return him safely to land, but given his distance out to sea when rescued it could quite easily have been a different situation."