A LIFEBOAT crew was called out to rescue a lone fisherman after his boat's engine broke down on Friday. FEB20

The fisherman had called the coastguard after getting into difficulties off the coast of Redcar, near to Salt Scar, shortly after 2pm and Hartlepool RNLI were called to rescue the 16ft speed boat.

It emerged the fisherman had left Hartlepool earlier in the day to go pleasure fishing without a radio or GPS system. The boat was towed to Hartlepool Marina where it was moored up at 3.50pm.

Mike Craddy, Hartlepool RNLI Operations Manager, said: "We cannot stress strongly enough that if you are going to sea, even if you are not going far, it is important that you have the correct safety equipment and that your vessel is maintained regularly. A radio and GPS are the least you should have. This could have turned into a serious incident if the mobile phone had fallen into the sea or the battery had gone dead."