A LONE kayaker had a lucky escape after he capsized in the North Sea and was left clinging to his boat.

After he had been floating in the water for 40 minutes he was spotted by a fishing boat and the crew were able to pluck him to safety.

The drama happened about a mile off Skinningrove, between Staithes and Saltburn, on Sunday.

The Staithes and Runswick lifeboat crew was quickly on the scene to transfer him back to the Staithes boathouse where he was given warm clothing and treated for hypothermia until an ambulance arrived to take him to the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

The kayaker, from Leeds, is believed to be an East European man in his forties, and Staithes RNLI deputy launch operations manager Sean Baxter said: "All credit to the fishing boat crew for spotting him. He was extremely lucky to be rescued.

"The North Sea is unusually cold for the time of year because of the preceding bad weather in the last few months - and time is of the essence when someone has been floating in the sea that long."

He added: "Rescues like this underline what the RNLI is all about."