A Chinese junk and its crew were rescued by Walton lifeboat soon after the start of a voyage to Hong Kong.

The vessel called Thames Coastguards on a mobile telephone off the Tendring coastline after it ran into difficulties. Walton lifeboat went to its aid.

Dirty fuel caused the junk's engine to fail but by the time the lifeboat got to the junk the crew had changed fuel tanks and it was under way again.

However, Gary Edwards, second coxswain on the Kenneth Thelwall II, said the crew were still in trouble as the weather was far worse than forecast.

He said: "When the engine failed they also tried to sail her and one of the crew had taken a nasty blow on the head from a bamboo boom and suffered a cut which needed attention.

"We towed her in and once we were inside Harwich Harbour we took the casualty to Hapenny Pier where an ambulance was waiting to take him to Harwich Hospital."

Soon after the junk arrived in the harbour its gearbox blew up so the lifeboat towed it to Wolverston Marina for repairs.

"It was also taking in water and the floorboards in the engine room were getting pretty wet so we pumped them out," Mr Edwards added.

The lifeboat finally got back to its station at around 1am yesterday. Mr Edwards believed the junk had set off from Tower Bridge and was being sponsored by firms in the City.

On Tuesday it had left Southend and was on it way to Wolverston. The aim was to sail it back to Hong Kong for a refit, retracing an historic voyage.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.