A cruise ship which left Southampton at the weekend has declared an emergency.

Lifeboat crews in Cornwall had to carry out a medivac of a sick passenger on Monday morning from the 141,000-ton cruise ship Regal Princess.

The ship, which had over 3,000 passengers onboard, was diverted to Falmouth from her Round Britain cruise which departed Southampton on Sunday at 4pm.

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Falmouth pilot Captain Alex Head boarded the cruise ship off the Manacles from the pilot boat LK Mitchell (Coxswain Sandy Proctor) and piloted the vessel to just off Pendennis Point, where the lifeboat, under the command of Coxswain Luke Wills, went alongside to evacuate the sick passenger.

Falmouth Coastguard had contacted the Falmouth lifeboat launching authority shortly after 8am requesting the service of the all-weather lifeboat to assist in the medical evacuation of a passenger from the 330m cruise ship, which was on passage from Southampton to Cobh, County Cork in the Republic of Ireland, when the emergency arose. 

A sick passenger was taken from the cruise ship for treatment (Image: RNLI/ Sandy Proctor/ Luke Wills)

An RNLI spokesperson said: “The crew assembled in the boathouse, waiting for the ship to enter safe waters of Falmouth Bay, along with two ambulance paramedics that were tasked to assist in casualty care.

"The lifeboat 'Richard Cox Scott' slipped its mooring and headed out into the bay reaching the 'Regal Princess' at 10.45am.

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"The two paramedics were transferred aboard the cruiseship, together with two of the lifeboat crew to assist with the assessment and transfer of the casualty to the lifeboat.

"Once back on board with the casualty, the lifeboat returned to the lifeboat house, where the casualty and paramedics were transferred to a waiting ambulance to travel to hospital.”

The Regal Princess made an emergency diversion to Falmouth (Image: RNLI/ Sandy Proctor/ Luke Wills)

Regal Princess, which is one of seven Royal Class ships, is scheduled to call at Falmouth on August 18 on the penultimate port of her British Isles, Ireland, Scotland and France cruise.

This was the second time in 24 hours that ships from the Princess fleet had called at Falmouth.

Princess Cruises modified Grand Class cruise ship, Caribbean Princess, made a cruise call on Sunday when she arrived from Portland at the start of a cruise from Southampton to Iceland. Glorious weather greeted the ship when it anchored offshore in Falmouth Bay.