Tory peer Lord Glentoran, 71, was at the helm of his yacht Lazy Life, in high winds near Anvil Point on the Dorset coast on Sunday, when he and his crew, son Danny and off duty coastguard Ian Murdoch, saw a red distress flare.
Reaching the yacht Talisman II, they were told that the skipper David Starbuck was overboard. They quickly found him and got him on board.
When they returned to Talisman II they discovered that his daughter Rebecca had also been knocked unconscious.
A helicopter airlifted Rebecca off the yacht, and the Swanage lifeboat took the rest of the crew ashore to be checked by paramedics, while the yacht was sailed back by the lifeboat crew. Rebecca regained consciousness during the flight and was treated in hospital for a head injury.
“I'm just happy that we were there to help,” said Lord Glentoran, an Old Etonian who won an Olympic bobsleigh gold medal in 1964. He is president of the British Bobsleigh Association and has helped to run the Tall Ships Race. “I have led a fairly full life on the sea and you expect to run into this sort of thing. Next time it could be me.”
He said the wind was blowing about 30 knots, but luckily they spotted Mr Starbuck quite quickly. “I got alongside and Danny and Ian pulled him aboard. He was able to tell us he had been hit by the boom and had been in the water for about 20 minutes. He had a lifejacket on. If he hadn't he would have drowned for sure.”
Then they returned to Talisman II and found a young woman “slumped over the binnacle.”
“We alerted the coastguards and within ten minutes the helicopter and two lifeboats arrived and the young woman was taken away. We certainly saved someone's life, which I'm delighted to have done,” said the Conservative spokesman on Northern Ireland - who was back at sea on his way to the province yesterday.
“That we were there at the time was just chance. There was nobody else around. I've never carried out a live rescue before and I hope I never do again.”
