Paddle steamer sinks off north Wales coast

A paddle steamer has sunk off the north Wales coast while it was being towed towards Northern Ireland.

UK Coastguard were called at around 2:20pm on Friday afternoon to reports of a vessel taking on water around 10 miles west of South Stack.

Nobody was on board and the steamer contained no fuel, meaning no pollution was caused.

RNLI volunteers decided that the situation was too dangerous to try to put crew members on board, and by 4:20pm the steamer had sunk completely into the 50 metre deep waters.

"It was very sad to see such a lovely vessel sink like that", said Holyhead coxswain Tony Price. "Fortunately no one was endangered and the lack of fuel on board meant there were no environmental issues".