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Shark attack off Barra                                3/10/09

Comeback rocker Bernard Sumner - an iconic force of the new wave music movement in the 1980s - was recently rammed by a giant shark in the Western Isles it has emerged.

Stornoway coastguard alerted its rescue helicopter to rush to the scene and help him when the attack happened in shark infested waters off Barra in August he told an US music magazine.

Sumner from Manchester was lead singer of New Order one of the top influential bands on the alternative rock scene which emerged after the punk rock period

The group also recorded “World in Motion” as the the official song for England 1990 World Cup campaign which reached number one in the UK Top 40.

The 53-year-old rocker took time off sailing in the Hebrides after forming a new band Bad Lieutenant.

Their first single is ironically named Sink or Swim.

Sumner revealed to the American music magazine Interview that his yacht with his family onboard was attacked by a “huge shark” five miles off Barra.

It was his “hairiest moment in 25 years” of sailing

He told the publication: “I do like sailing, that's what I do as my pastime so I bought a yacht and I was sailing up on the west coast of Scotland and was rammed by a giant shark. That actually happened.

“They had to get the helicopter out. The boat nearly sank, I was out in a really rough part of sea called The Minch that's got all these shipwrecks in it and I had a collision with a 30 foot shark.

He explained: “I was sailing out from an island and I got about five miles out and there was this God almighty crash like I'd hit rocks and the boat was going to sink.

“I looked around and checked the charts and there was no rocks.

“So I called the Coast Guard and he said some of the other boats that had been up there that morning had reported six large sharks in that part of the sea.

“I got to the place I was going to, which is this small Scottish island called Barra and I got a diver to go down to the bottom of the boat .

“He said that there was a big imprint of a huge shark in the paint on the bottom of my boat.

“At the time I was sailing with my family while my family was in bed so I'm pulling the floorboards up every ten minutes to see if we'd taken on any water.”