A tall ship had to be rescued from double trouble.

Firstly there was not enough wind for its sails and its engines broke down.

The Dutch sailing vessel, with 30 people on board, lost power on the southwestern lane of the Dover Strait.

The 47-metre long Swaensborgh got into trouble at 9am on Wednesday and the Dover Lifeboat went to its rescue.

VIDEO: A lifeboat comes to the rescue of the large sailing vessel. Credit: Nigel Scutt

City of London II towed the three-masted Swaensborgh away from the busy shipping lane and she was safety berthed on the Easter Arm of Dover Eastern Docks.

The rescue was aided by the Dover Pilot Harbour Patrol, which helped with the berthing of the Dutch vessel.

James Clapham, RNLI Coxswain for Dover RNLI Lifeboat the City of London II, said: "Despite being a large tall ship the Dutch sailing vessel just couldn’t rely solely on wind alone. It was crucial for us to attend the vessel as it was in the busy shipping lanes, we managed to get the tall ship under tow promptly whilst a 180 metre tanker was heading towards us at a speed of 17 knots a very dangerous position for any boat to be left drifting around."

The first call-out was followed by a second, later in the day, with Dover RNLI paged at 4.23pm to a British sailing yacht which was 14 metres long.

The yacht was at anchor with two persons on board and luckily was out of the way of the main commercial traffic at the Port.

The yacht was then towed to shelter at Dover Marina at 5.50pm, where they were able to resolve the engine failure.

RNLI Dover Press Officer Ed Baker said: "It proved to be a busy day for Dover Lifeboat with both vessels suffering engine failure; even the highest maintained vessels encounter occasional difficulties and malfunctions.

"The RNLI is here to promote Sea Safety and respond whenever necessary to assist those in distress or suffering operational difficulty. The RNLI relies solely on fundraising and donations to fund our vital Life-saving and Rescue services, so thank you to everyone for their invaluable support to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.

"Let’s not forget about the hefty number of hours which our volunteer crew members gave up to operate the lifeboat today, thank you to all our crew for their service and backing from their employers to attend."