Image: colourbox.de
As the rescue company RNLI announced on Thursday, according to eyewitnesses, the men were on Tuesday evening with the float near the seaside resort of Westward Ho! in the west English county of Devon. After just five minutes, they were driven 75 meters out to sea. When they were about 200 meters out and even a companion in an inflatable kayak failed to pull them back, the witness alerted the Coast Guard.
However, before the rescuers arrived by speedboat, a man with a stand-up paddle board came to the rescue of the three on the duck. He managed to tow the duck, christened “Quackers,” back to an area from which the men were able to swim to shore. Inflatable toys should never be taken out to sea in Bristol Channel Bay, with its strong currents and winds, the RNLI said. “There is no way to control them and they will be pulled away from shore within seconds,” the rescue society warned.
Westward Ho! Incidentally, is the only place in the United Kingdom that has an exclamation mark in its official spelling. The settlement was named after a novel by author Charles Kingsley.
Source: Nachrichten
