Sunday July 12 dawned bright and sunny with good conditions along the coast of East Sussex. But at 10.48am the pagers went off in response to a request from HM Coastguard to launch RNLI Rye Harbour’s Atlantic 85 as there were reports of a small boat in distress between Rye and Dungeness.
The tide was out so this required a low-water launch from the beach, 1.5 kms from the boathouse. This was the third low-water launch in 24 days. Paul Anderson, Head Launcher, was the tractor driver and Matt Ellis was helm for this shout. Tim Dickinson, Izzy Sharpe and Luke Bishop were the volunteer crew, who had all had practice in this type of launch in both training and actual shouts.
A search of the area was carried out carefully and diligently, but no boat in distress was found. The boat returned to the station and was prepared for further service.
Paul Anderson commented: “The beach launch was carried out smoothly thanks to the experience of both shore and boat crews in RNLI procedures and was carried out with observation of appropriate social distancing. After the launch the tractor and Dodo (launch and recovery carriage) returned to the boathouse. The boat, Hello Herbie II, was recovered on the slipway after the task was completed.”
Image Credits: Iain Cebunka .