The crew of a small yacht faced disaster as they drifted powerlessly towards rocks on the river Tay.
With their engine stopped and with sales furled, the sailors had no way of regaining swift control of their vessel and began to drift in the mouth of the estuary.
They issued a distress call and that brought a swift response with the volunteer crew at the Broughty Ferry Lifeboat Station springing into action on Sunday afternoon.
Crew members made all haste to the lifeboat with more numbers than were required responding to the call and were soon speeding down the river.
They intercepted the yacht as it drifted dangerously close to rocks off The Royal Tay Yacht Club at Broughty Ferry.
Fortunately the lifeboat arrived in the nick of time and soon had the boat and its crew secured, leading them back into safe harbour.
Watching the drama unfold was the Reverend Canon Alan Hughes MBE, who is currently on exercise as military chaplain at Barry Buddon with a group of with Army Cadets from Northumbria.
Reverend Hughes said he was driving to make a hospital visit when members of the lifeboat crew sped up behind him.
He pulled over to the side of the road after spotting their “lifeboat crew on duty” sign and decided to follow the vehicle to see what was happening.
He arrived at the station in time to see it head out into the Tay at top speed and followed it along the coast to where he saw a small blue sailing boat in difficulty.
“I am a sailor and I know that without power and without sails they could have found themselves in great jeopardy,” Reverend Hughes said.
“The crew aboard seemed to have either missed or slipped their mooring and they were drifting swiftly onto rocks.
“Had the lifeboat not arrived when it did they could have been in great jeopardy.”
He added: “This is just another example of the tremendous work this amazing organisation does.
“They will have been sitting there eating their Sunday lunch when the call came in and have sprung into action immediately.
“They actually had more crew respond than they needed and those who headed out certainly arrived just in time.”
It’s been a busy month for the crew with nine call-outs in connection with incidents on the Tay Bridge and searches of the shoreline for missing people
They also launched to rescue two females cut off by tide on rocks at the High Light, by Tayport.
The pair were recovered and returned to Tayport Harbour without suffering any ill effects.