A fishing boat's motor failure caused it to be stuck at sea for two hours during Wednesday's heavy rainfall.

Anchored near the North Channel three miles north of Coney Island, a single fisherman on the Patience, a local fishing boat, called in to shore for assistance with his boat.

A spokesman from Harbour Radio said: "We got the call at 5.35 p.m. where the man said he couldn't get his motor started.

"At that time, the weather had started to deteriorate and I didn't want to leave him out there so I put out an emergency broadcast."

The spokesman said that the fisherman had called a friend, right before he dropped his cellular phone overboard, who then called the fisherman's brother.

The brother subsequently rescued the fisherman and towed him to Burchall's Cove in Hamilton Parish.