Poole Lifeboat deals with three incidents during Bournemouth Airshow on Saturday
Poole Lifeboat deals with three incidents during Bournemouth Airshow on Saturday
Lifeboats News Release
Another day of the Air Show and Poole bay was full of boats eagerly anticipating the spectacular display in the blue skies above on Saturday (September 1st).
Poole lifeboat was out and about on preventative exercise, when just before noon UK Coastguard tasked the lifeboat to search for a carrier, this is the term for when possibly a person has blocked their radio, which in turn blocks the airwaves so that nobody else can communicate, this occurrence blocked signals from 3 Ariel’s, which may have been faulty equipment or a genuine accident, either way it needed to be cleared as if there was an emergency for real, it would not be picked up over the radio.
The Lifeboat was able to trace the position of the carrier by DF (Direction Finding) using VHF, the lifeboat found the vessel south west of the exclusion zone on the west side of Bournemouth Pier and advised the occupants that they were blocking the channel and to turn the radio off which they did.
The lifeboat was then tasked alongside Mudeford Lifeboat to assist a 16ft motorboat with three people on-board that had broken down, one of the casualties was suffering with sea sickness. There was a slight chop in Poole Bay with a southerly wind, but due to the vast amount of vessels all jockeying for a good viewing position, there was quite a bit of wash, around the exclusion zone.
Mudeford lifeboat crew conveyed the poorly casualty onto their lifeboat and transferred her to Bournemouth Pier, whilst Poole Lifeboat checked that everyone else was okay and towed the broken down vessel back to a mooring at North Haven inside Poole Harbour.
As the Poole lifeboat was heading down the channel back to the station, communication came other the radio that a person ashore had reported a fire on a boat 20 metres off Old Harry, so the UK Coastguard tasked Poole Lifeboat to respond immediately, this report had also been confirmed by a Search and Rescue helicopter that was on passage. The lifeboat began an extensive search but there was no evidence of anything untoward, the volunteers checked out the vessels moored in the area and one of them did acknowledge that they had just had a barbeque on deck which could have explained the smoke.
It was put down as a call with good intent and as nobody was imminent danger the lifeboat returned back to station, after refuelling the lifeboat was ready for service by 6.30pm
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.
