On Sunday morning, Falmouth Coastguard paged RNLI Torbay at 10.26am to inform us that a young male adult had gone ‘missing
He was staying at a holiday camp just above Brixham and had threatened to self harm. He was last seen nine hours earlier at 1.30am. Relatives and friends were understandably extremely worried.
Our Duty Launch Authority (DLA) and duty coxswain decided to launch our In-shore Lifeboat (ILB) at 10.40am to investigate nearby waters and carried out a search from Berry Head to Scabbacombe but found nothing. The ILB crew were formally stood down 12.17pm and returned to station at 12.25pm.
On a separate incident later in the day, Falmouth Coastguard paged us at 4.31pm following report in of two males who had been seen entering a cave off Berryhead by the waterline. They had been spotted by a member of the public on top of cliff who subsequently lost sight of them.
Our ILB launched at 4.45pm. The local Coast Guard Rescue Team (CRT) then managed to speak to the first responder and others nearby and established that the two ‘missing’ males were actually climbers, so our ILB crew were stood down 5:05pm.
Meanwhile another page came in to our DLA. This time from Solent Coastguard, informing us that a 32-foot motor race boat taking part in the Cowes Torquay race, had lost power on its return journey to Cowes. She was taking on water although the crew aboard were managing to work a hand pump to keep her afloat. But she clearly needed assistance. Her rough position was 11 miles east of Torquay.
Our Severn Class All-weather Lifeboat (ALB) ‘Alec and Christina Dykes’ duly launched with a crew that were already at the lifeboat station, and was on the scene by 5:30pm, where our crew helped with pumping out water and towed her back to Torquay, arriving at 6:45pm.
This meant she, our ALB and her crew, were late to the Service of Dedication being conducted by Helen Lovell-Smith at the Fish Quay in Brixham harbour. However, it made her tardy but grand arrival halfway through the service all that much more dramatic at 7:05pm!
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