Two services within four hours for Rhyl RNLI volunteers

Despite having had a week's intensive training involving up to 12-hour days on the new Shannon lifeboat, the crews answered their pagers twice this morning, the first being at 28 minutes past midnight, and the second at 2.45 am, resulting in the crews being at sea for nearly four hours.
The first call was to a casualty reported in the water off the Sky Tower at Rhyl in difficulty, after going out of view of friends ashore. Both boats, together with UK local coastguard teams and the police, started searching on and off shore between Rhyl harbour and the lifeboat station. The casualty was eventually located ashore, after becoming separated from the friends, and making their own way home, safe and well. The marine units were stood down, the lifeboats returning to station at about 2.20 am.
As the crews were leaving, they were re-paged to launch to assist a police incident at Towyn. A shoreline search between Rhyl harbour and Pensarn was undertaken (see marine traffic images attached),until the casualty was found ashore near the beach. All units were stood down, the lifeboats returning to shore by 4 am.
The crews were back on station the next morning at 8.45 am to resume their intense training programme on the new Shannon lifeboat.
The all-weather lifeboat involved in both these events was the station Mersey-class lifeboat ' Lil Cunningham' , still providing sterling service to Rhyl after 27 years' on station. She is still the on-call boat until all the crew are proficient in handling the new lifeboat. This will probably be around the end of November 2019.
The photos show the tracks of both the lifeboats on both services, also the station lifeboat watching over the new Shannon lifeboat the next morning, as the crew prepare to go to sea for another day's intensive training.
Martin Jones, Rhyl lifeboat coxswain says ' This morning shows the commitment the crew has to the RNLI charity, that they are willing to go to sea to help others, despite only just leaving the station a few hours earlier and having a few hours' sleep, and they will be back at sea this morning for another day's training'.
He added ' the crew at Rhyl lifeboat station exemplify the RNLI ethos of saving lives at sea, and I am extremely proud of them all for their dedication'.

Key facts about the RNLI

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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