Skipper Russell Phillips and his wife Shauna were rescued from the cliffs by local emergency services on Friday night.

The couple made a may-day call to the Eden Royal Volunteer Coastal (RVCP) Patrol at 10.30pm on Friday night after sailing into strong winds and waves.

With engines swamped, the 38foot catamaran was powerless against the strong winds that pushed the boat onto rocks at the base of Look Out Point.

“We turned into Two Fold Bay and the wind basically doubled to 70 knots and there was a huge sea running in the bay itself,” Skipper Russell Phillips said.

“We came around the headland and we just got hammered pretty badly by some big waves.”

Eden Police, State Emergency Service, Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol and Eden Water Police attended the scene.

Rescue operations were made difficult due to the location of the and strong winds blowing between 55 and 70 knots.

“The boat had straddled a large rock, and the two people on board, along with two dogs, were surrounded by cliffs and couldn’t get off,” Eden Water Police sergeant Jim Hinckley said.

Unable to reach the pair by boat, rescue services scaled the cliff face to access the vessel.

“It was too rough to get a boat into the area, we would have ended up on the rocks ourselves,” sergeant Hinckley said.

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