Bake Off star Prue Leith 'rescued by angry fisherman' after floating adrift off the coast of Italy for a whole day

16 December 2022, 21:55

Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith has said she was stuck in a boat off the coast of Italy for a whole day before being rescued by an angry fisherman.

Ms Leith, 82, was on a motorboat off the coast of the Italian island of Sardinia when her engine broke down, the Mirror reported.

She tried to flag people down for help, but said they thought she was just giving them a friendly wave.

Ms Leith said: "I couldn’t start it and the wind was getting up. I thought, ‘This has the makings of a really bad novel’.

"To make matters worse, her panicky attempts to get help were misinterpreted.

She said: “People would pass, not close enough to shout to them but close enough to wave and I’d be waving wildly and they just waved back, thinking I was just being friendly.”

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Eventually a Sardinian fisherman came to her rescue - but did not give her an easy ride on the way back to shore.

Ms Leith said: “He was so angry with me.

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"He said, ‘You tourists, you risk your lives. You could have drifted all the way to Corsica!’“And he just gave me absolutely blazes. And there was I... sunburnt.

“I was thirsty, I’d had a whole day of absolute misery. But he was quite right and I was very foolish.”