A MAN was rushed to hospital after suffering a seizure while on a yacht in the Solent.

A coastguard helicopter from Lee-on-the-Solent and a Cowes RNLI lifeboat were called to the vessel, which was about one-and-a-half miles from Osborne Bay on the Isle of Wight, at about 3.40pm on Saturday.

The 43-year-old man was taken to land and transferred to hospital in an ambulance.

An RNLI spokesman said: "The yachtsman, one of a number about a 40-foot yacht on charter from Port Solent, Portsmouth, had collapsed after suffering a fit and was in a very weakened state in the cockpit.

"The lifeboat helm, Mark Harner, transferred Dr Will King and another crew member, Anne Simkins, to the yacht to assess the man's condition.

"They were then joined by a paramedic who had been lowered from the helicopter, together with full medical kit.

"Eventually it was decided the man, still in a collapsed state but conscious, should be taken by the yacht to Gunwharf Quay, Portsmouth, where he was transferred on a stretcher to an ambulance."

The incident was the first "for-real" action of crew member Mark Crook, who had been undergoing training on the lifeboat that day.