Stranded sailors brought ashore by volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew
Location of the casualty meant help was needed to bring them to safety.
Two people left Lytham Dock in their 6.4m (21 foot) bilge keel yacht for a quiet couple of hours Sunday afternoon sail in the Ribble Estuary. Unfortunately they grounded on the south side of the river and, despite their best efforts, were unable to refloat the vessel as the rapidly ebbing tide left them high, if not exactly dry.
Their grounding location left them cut off from the north side and Lytham Town by the river’s main channel. Walking ashore on the south side was not a safe option with around four miles of mud flat, salt marsh and deep gullies in their path.
Expecting to be at sea for only a couple of hours, the man and woman had no supplies of food and drink on board or extra warm clothing, although they had made sure they had the full complement of safety equipment including lifejackets and radio.
With the weather forecast to deteriorate, as soon as they realised they could not refloat the yacht, they did the sensible thing and contacted HM Coastguard and requested assistance.
The Coastguard tasked the Lytham St Annes RNLI inshore lifeboat (ILB) at 3.50pm to assess the situation and then bring the two sailors ashore. The volunteer crew assembled and the D class lifeboat MOAM was launched at Church Scar with Helm Vinny Pedley in command, and crew members Elizabeth Gee and Adrian Hogg.
They headed the mile upriver until opposite the stranded vessel on the south side then walked through the mud, now revealed as the tide ebbed off, until they reached the casualty. Having ensured the yacht was anchored safely against the next days flood tide, the lifeboat crew walked the two sailors across the mud to where the ILB was waiting at the edge of the channel. The ILB then returned to Church Scar with the grateful couple before bringing them to the ILB House to ensure they were safe and well.
The MOAM and the Land Rover had to then be refuelled, checked over and washed off with the help of the shore crew, before being rehoused in readiness for the next call out for help.
Helm Vinny Pedley said:
'The yacht crew did the sensible thing by contacting the Coastguard, as to have spent the night aboard the small vessel without food and warm clothes would have been far from pleasant and even possibly quite dangerous if the temperature dropped as forecast overnight.'
David Forshaw LPO Lytham St Annes
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The RNLI is the charity that 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 146,700 lives.
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