Sales rep Simon Heslop had a real sinking feeling when he saw his Ford Sierra estate car float away down the Ouse and disappear under water.

Attempts to stop the car as it trundled along the cobbles on Queen's Staith, opposite the King's Arms pub in York were in vain, and he and his boss, Simon Mellard, were forced to watch in horror as the car floated downstream and became wedged between two barges.

Mr Mellard climbed on to the mooring ropes of one of the barges in an attempt to get a line around the car but he was forced to abort his rescue attempt when it began to sink.

He said: "We got out of the car and I felt something move.

"It floated down between the two barges and got trapped, then it sank. It must have taken no more than 40 or 50 seconds."

Mr Heslop said: "Simon shouted and it was off, we grabbed it by the doors but there was nothing we could do.

"There is no way we could have stopped it. There's all sorts of stuff in there, including my coat, I don't think I will be wearing it now.

Mr Heslop and Mr Mellard, who work for Combined Insurance of America and both come from Hemingbrough, near Selby, were in York on a field training exercise. They were on their way to an appointment in nearby offices when the incident happened.

PC Martin Metcalfe, who attended the scene, said: "Quite a lot of cars get submerged, it catches people out.

"We take the registration number and try to contact the owner but there's not a lot we can do."

From the opposite bank, Monica and Richard Driver, from Scarborough, were able to catch the incident on camera but had a special reason for having sympathy for Mr Heslop.

Mr Driver said: "It happened to us as well about 23 years ago. We got stuck in the sand at Morecambe Bay and we couldn't move. The tide came in and we just had to stand there and watch."

Mr Heslop was told that the car would have to stay in the river until the tide had gone down.

The river had risen to 8ft above its normal level when the incident occurred.

The car was parked in a no parking area but PC Metcalfe said he would not be issuing a ticket.

Yesterday was the coldest June day in the Vale of York since the 1930s, with a maximum temperature in North Yorkshire 9C and an even chillier 8C on the coast. Usually the average maximum June temperature for York is 19C.

The city shivered as 24mm of rain fell in 24 hours, just below York's worst June downpour in which 31mm was recorded.

Weathermen say the floods were caused by unusually heavy rainfall on the hills the day before.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.