Visiting Lifeboat Tries Porthcawl Marina for Size
The Mumbles RNLI lifeboat ‘Roy Barker IV’ visited Porthcawl over the weekend. The charities all-weather lifeboat was joined by Porthcawl’s Atlantic 85 during the exercise which took place between Nash Point and Port Talbot.
Second coxswain at The Mumbles station, James Bolter said, ‘It is essential that we know the sea and coastline off Porthcawl as on occasions we have to cover this area when incidents require an all-weather lifeboat. We work closely with all our neighbouring lifeboat stations and as part of today’s exercise we wanted to test our ability to enter Porthcawl Marina. Our Tamar class lifeboat has a beam of 5.3 metres and we just managed to manoeuvre through the gates with a few centimetres to spare’.
Ross Martin, Deputy Launch Authority at Porthcawl, said, ‘Porthcawl Marina has now become known as a ‘safe haven’ for any vessels in difficulties off our coast. Today’s exercise was to establish access for The Mumbles lifeboat should it be called upon to tow in any boats requiring assistance in the channel along our patch. To witness their lifeboat enter a relatively small marina was an experience and proved the seamanship abilities of their crew and especially their coxswain’.
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The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 146,000 lives.
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