Three drunk revellers who set to sea in a small dinghy with only one paddle were rescued after drifting in the English Channel for 11 hours thinking they had sailed to France. Equipped only with a bottle of wine and wearing shorts and t-shirts, the men launched their seven-foot inflatable from the beach at Littlehampton, West Sussex, at 9pm on Saturday.
They were spotted at 8am the next morning by a birdwatcher who saw them waving for help two miles out to sea. According to onlookers, the mariners thought they had reached the French coast and greeted their coastguard rescuers with: “Bonjour."
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An RNLI crew picked them up and treated them for hypothermia before taking them to Worthing Hospital. The men, who have not been named, have all fully recovered from their ordeal.
Littlehampton RNLI’s lifeboat operations manager Nick White said: “These three gents were extremely fortunate to be seen by a vigilant member of the public, and so lucky to have survived overnight with no protection and no lifejackets. It would have been so easy for the dinghy to have been capsized by the smallest of waves."
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