BUNGLING AMATEUR YACHTSMAN RUNS AGROUND 11:14 Thursday 10 August 2000 A bungling amateur yachtsman who has had to be rescued at least six times in the past year - at a cost of 30,000 - sparked a seventh alert today when he ran aground in his home-made boat. Eccentric Eric Abbott, 56, who navigates with just an AA map book of Britain, ran aground off Rhyl in north Wales. A Holyhead Coastguard spokesman said: "Some time this morning, Coastguards picked up an SOS call on the radio to say that he had run aground on the Rhyl Estuary." A Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat was launched to assist Mr Abbott, from Northwich, Cheshire. On Wednesday, Coastguards pleaded with Mr Abbott to equip himself with proper sea charts, pointing out that he had cost the RNLI an estimated 30,000 for at least six rescues over the past year. According to some reports, Mr Abbott has had to be rescued nine times in the past 13 months. On a number of occasions, he was said to have given wildly wrong positions, or to have admitted that he did not know where he was.