Swansea Coastguards came to the aid of a sinking yacht 10,000 miles away in Swansea, Australia when the mayday call was mistakenly put through to them.

Three people on Lake Macquarie in New South Wales made an SOS call when their dinghy started sinking.

Welsh watchman Arwyn Williams said the team were confused when they weren’t able to identify any of the landmarks described by the caller and when he gave them the wrong time.

“We received a call which came in as a routine call and he said they were sinking,” he told BBC News.

“We didn’t recognise any of the places or features he could see and then the night watchman asked him which country he was in – at which point he said Australia,” Mr Williams said.

“We told him to ring his emergency services in their country but in the meantime we contacted the emergency services in Australia and passed on the details.

All the people on board were successfully rescued.

“We have no idea how he got through to us and to be fair to him he was quite calm but had we not told him to call the services the guys might not have been rescued,” said Williams.

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