Plight of the navigator

A former lecturer in marine navigation has had to be rescued by a lifeboat after getting stuck on a sandbank.

Yachtsman Peter Mitchell was stuck for seven hours upstream from Sunderland Yacht Club on the River Wear. John Cowley of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution told The Daily Express : "There was no damage and no one was hurt. But he said he would never be able to live it down at the club."

Coastguard Simon Tait added: "It's really embarrassing for someone who is supposedly a navigation expert to run aground on a simple stretch of river."