Father and son rescued from sinking boat near Porthcawl

The Mumbles all-weather lifeboat towed the vessel to safety

A father and son were rescued after their boat began sinking in the Bristol Channel near Porthcawl.

The Cardiff-based commercial dive boat was travelling to Swansea on Thursday afternoon when it started taking in water.

Coastguards were alerted and the son was taken on board a lifeboat from Porthcawl.

The father remained on the stricken boat to offer help to the RNLI team pumping water from it.

Joe Missen, an RNLI volunteer involved in the rescue, said: "When we arrived on scene we found the 34ft vessel was taking on water quite severely.

"Two of our volunteer crew were put on board to try and pump away some of the water as soon as possible.

"It was a difficult situation as the vessel was drifting very close to a sandbank so we needed to begin the towing operation swiftly."

An RAF helicopter from Devon also helped in the operation.

The boat was later towed to Swansea.