A TITANIC struggle to rescue a dinghy being swamped by waves at Hamworthy gave boot camp members a workout they didn't expect.

As the eight-strong Fight for Fitness group arrived at Lake Pier in wet and windy weather, they came upon a soaked and shivering man struggling to save his boat.

He had used the motorboat to get to his larger boat moored off the beach but having tied it up, the dinghy came loose and the waves carried it away as it slowly filled with water.

"Stranded I had to swim ashore, barefoot and drenched through I began trying to save my boat," said the shipwrecked sailor.

However Rhea Garnett, one of the boot camp group, saw what was happening and urged the others to help. Without hesitation they took off their socks and shoes and ran into the sea fully clothed to rescue the slowly sinking boat.

"We saw this guy struggling in the water," said Dave Hoyland, Fight for Fitness instructor. "He had been there two hours trying to do it himself. He looked so cold when we saw him, he was freezing."

He said four or five of the group got in the water and they managed to empty the boat using buckets and manhandle it out of the sea and onto the beach, flipping it several times until it was out of reach of the waves.

"I was stranded, alone and without shoes and this group offered their help to someone they didn't even know," said the grateful boat owner. "Without them I would have lost my motorboat. What they did for me was amazing and I'm entirely grateful."

Dave said the weather was so bad he was close to calling off the boot camp. "They definitely had a workout," he said of his group, adding that afterwards some of them continued with their run, while he took the man, who had no shoes or keys, home to Ashley Cross.