Three shouts in one day for Angle RNLI

The first page came at 12.42pm, when the crew were paged to assist a 10m yacht with two persons onboard suffering from machinery failure, 3.5 miles south-west of St Ann’s Head. The vessel was making some progress under sail, but with the crew fatigued from sailing all night and a 3.6m swell facing them at the entrance to the Haven, they requested assistance.

The lifeboat launched shortly after and were on scene with the vessel 15 minutes later. With the yacht making decent progress under sail, after a discussion with the yacht's skipper it was decided that the lifeboat would continue to escort the yacht into the Haven and pass a tow once in calmer waters.

As the yacht was making an approach to the east channel, the yacht's skipper requested the lifeboat take them under tow as they were now struggling to make progress and were drifting towards Mid Channel Rocks. The lifeboat crew swiftly set about passing a tow and soon had a tow established.

A course was set for Hobbs Point and both vessels arrived off the pontoon around 90 minutes later. The yacht was placed into an alongside tow and manoeuvred safely onto the pontoon. With no further assistance required, the crew were stood down and the lifeboat was back alongside and readied for further service by 4.30pm.

Just a few hours later whilst on exercise at 7.04pm, the crew overhead mayday communications from a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) with two persons onboard broken down and drifting ashore close to the South Hook LNG terminal.

As the crew were only a mile or so away conducting navigation exercises, they responded immediately and were on scene just minutes later. The vessel was located having intermittent engine issues and limping their way into safe water. With the skipper happy to downgrade his mayday and make slow progress under his own power, the lifeboat remained with the vessel to escort it back to its launch site at East Angle.

Shortly after, both vessels arrived safely in East Angle Bay and the crew stood by briefly while the vessel was recovered onto its trailer. With nothing further to assist with, the crew were stood down at 7.30pm and continued with their exercise.

Not long after going home from exercise at 9.01pm the crew were paged again, this time to assist Dale and Broad Haven Coastguard Rescue Teams and the police with a missing person in the Milford Waterfront area.

The lifeboat launched and was soon on scene where the crew were requested to conduct a search of the immediate area. Whilst searching an update received stated that the casualty’s mobile phone data placed him in the area of the entrance to the marina. The lifeboat focused their search in this area whilst investigations continued ashore.

During the search marina staff utilising their CCTV located the casualty inland of the marina and directed police officers to their position. Once confirmed that the person was safe the crew were subsequently stood down. The lifeboat was back alongside her berth and readied for service once again by 10pm.