A RESCUE helicopter from RAF Wattisham is leading the search to find the three occupants of a missing Dutch yacht.The missing two men and one woman had departed from the Dutch port of Ijmuiden bound for Chatham in Kent along with 19 other yachts on Saturday morning, and were due in at around lunchtime yesterday.

TWO men and one woman who had disappeared at sea have now been found safe and well.

A RESCUE helicopter from RAF Wattisham was leading the search to find the three occupants of a missing Dutch yacht.

The missing two men and one woman had departed from the Dutch port of Ijmuiden bound for Chatham in Kent along with 19 other yachts on Saturday morning, and were due in at around lunchtime yesterday. The alarm was raised yesterday evening with Thames Coastguard at Walton-On-Naze in Essex at around 9pm.

A full scale search was launched for the yacht and it was eventually found this morning, the occupants having no battery on their mobile phone and the yacht itself having no power.

A spokesperson for the Maritime and Coastguard agency said: “They were stuck in filthy weather with no way of being able to contact anyone.

It was a lucky escape.”