Officials have praised the performance of Southend's RNLI hovercraft following its first time in action last week.
Installed at the town's lifeboat station earlier this year, the £135,000 craft had an embarrassing debut day after getting stuck in a creek at Leigh.
Since then it has been put on alert many times but last week it was finally called out - and delivered.
A young child and three youths had wandered more than a mile out to the Mulberry Harbour and were more than three miles from their starting point.
Predictably, they were caught by the tide and the hovercraft found them in nearly two feet of water.
The speed and efficiency of the rescue thrilled the head of Southend's pier and foreshore department, Marjorie Hall.
She said: "We knew it would be a valuable asset and the efficiency of the rescue shows it is fully justified."
Published Monday August 2, 2004
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