TWO surfers had to be rescued by Scarborough's inshore lifeboat after they got into difficulties.

The two 18-year-olds, from Catterick, North Yorkshire, were tired and clinging to a kayak, whose occupant held a paddle aloft to make it easier for the lifeboat to locate them.

By the time the rescue craft caught up with them, they were nearly a mile offshore, near Cayton Bay.

The launch, at 2.20pm on Sunday afternoon, came as weather conditions worsened and a big tide was rising.

The RNLI volunteers had barely rehoused the inshore lifeboat when another launch request came in from the coastguard, at 4.50pm, right on high tide.

Two men from Eastfield had been cut off by the sea just south of the Holbeck landslip and had to be rescued.

Lifeboat operations manager John Senior said: “Our volunteers are training and drilling all the time for these kinds of incidents. We would stress that surfers and shore walkers alike, along with all other sea-users, always need to be vigilant when it comes to the power and timing of the tides.”