St Ives RNLI lifeboat launches twice in 24 hours
At 1.07am on Thursday 21st March, Falmouth coastguard requested help from St Ives lifeboat to support in the search of a missing person. On Friday 22nd March at 6.47pm Falmouth coastguard requested assistance from St Ives lifeboat again, with reports of someone in the water.
It was an early call on Thursday 21st March, the crew responded quickly at 1.07am and the all weather and inshore lifeboats were in the water in a couple of minutes. The crews on both boats were responding to a call for assistance in locating a missing person that may be in the water.
Our inshore lifeboat with a volunteer crew of 3 were tasked with performing a search from Porthgwidden, to the Island and then on to Porthminster Point. The Coastguard then requested the ILB team to repeat this search stepping out 2 cables. Whilst performing the search the crew were asked to launch two flares to assist the search visibility.
Meanwhile our allweather lifeboat with a volunteer crew of 7 were also searching from the harbour to Porthmeor and then back to Porthminster Point. Thankfully the sea conditions were good, flat calm and whilst the all weather lifeboat crew were receiving a further set of instructions for a parallel search, both crews received word from Falmouth Coastguard that the potentially casualty had been located safe - and therefore both crews could stand down and return to the station. The crew returned at approximately 3.18am, and readied the boats once again for service.
On Friday 22nd March at 6.47pm the volunteer crew were requested to assist again in a search. Reports were that a man had been washed off of the rocks in the Bassets Cove area, near Portreath and he was in the water. The team launched the all weather lifeboat in under 2 minutes from page and made their way to the reported location. Responding also was St Agnes lifeboat, HM Coastguard Portreath Rescue Team, St Agnes Coastguard Search & Rescue Team and the Maritime & Coastguard Agency Helicopter. Someone in the water can quickly get into difficulty in a matter of moments, so a response to being in the water is extremely quick, robust and thorough. Thankfully in this instance the casualty had managed to make his way out of the water before anything disastrous occurred and HM Coastguard Team from Portreath were able to make contact with him and ensured he was assisted to complete safety. At this point all teams were stood down, and our all weather lifeboat accompanied St Agnes inshore lifeboat back to their station for safety purposes, then our crew returned to the station and readied our lifeboat again for service.
Notes to editors
· · Photo 2 – Thursday 21st Volunteer Crew waiting for news – Niki Brooks
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