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Grounded guard ship towed from sanbank off Lowestoft
On Nov 11, 2025, at 11.11 a.m. the lifeboat of the RNLI station in Lowestoft, the 'Patsy Knight-RNLI 13-05', was called to assist the 'Devotion', which had run aground on the Newcome Sandbank just off the pier heads off the Suffolk coast. The converterd trawler, which is being used as a guard vessel, could be seen from the lifeboat station. It was a flood tide, and the vessel had caught the edge of the sand bar, so that the tide was holding it on its beam and pinning it there. The situation was assessed and it was decided that the safest action was to try to ease the vessel into deeper water. A line was thrown to the boat, which had a four-metre draught and was quite heavy, After 15 minutes of pulling the ship was successfully refloated. Once freed from the sand the skipper reported that he had no rudder control and couldn’t initially steer, However, this could soon be rectified, and the vessel safely entered the harbour of Lowestoft under its own power, being escorted by the lifeboat just after noon. It headed to a mooring in the Hamilton Dock. The vessel had come from Fraserburgh. The 'Devotion' had already been stuck on a sandbar in Wick Bay on Sep 22 for about five hours after its crew misjudged the tide when leaving the harbour, where it had been sheltering from the weather. It left the harbour at about 4.15 p.m. but soon found itself stranded and was leaning to its port side. The ship refloated with the rising tide again at around 9.15 p.m. Before, there wasn’t enough water to get over the sandbar, and the skipper just made a miscalculation on the tide. The bar was due to be dredgedin October, weather permitting. Reports with photos: https://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/news/25615353.guard-vessel-runs-aground-sandbank-off-suffolk-coast/
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