Saving Lives at Sea

In Newhaven, the RNLI volunteers race to the rescue of two paragliders who have landed on an isolated stretch of beach and are now being swamped by the rapidly rising tide.

In total, the RNLI is made up of over 35,000 individual volunteers, all working together on land and sea to save lives. In Swanage, the lifeboat crew work hand in hand with the specialist coastguard rope team to help an injured climber. In Rhyl, north Wales, a retired crew member comes to the aid of a person in the water when mechanical problems throw a spanner in the works of the lifeboat. On Douglas, in the Isle of Man, a fire on a fishing boat puts the crew on red alert. And in Gravesend, a routine training exercise is diverted by an unusual casualty: a poorly swan.

In Lyme Regis, on Dorset’s Jurassic coast, the crew face a frantic search for three fishermen whose boat has capsized in the River Axe. On the north Cornish coast, the lifeguards at Harlyn race to the rescue of a teenager caught out by a notorious rip current. On the west coast of Scotland, the Oban crew dash across the water to the remote island of Kerrera to help an injured walker, and across the Irish Sea, the Kinsale crew have to act quickly to help a skipper who, while trying to single-handedly sail his yacht across the Atlantic, is drifting without power towards rocks.

On Ireland’s north west coast, the RNLI crew at Bundoran race to the rescue of a teenage girl who has been swept out to sea.

On the coast of south Wales, Penarth crew member Tom is called up for his first ever shout when a female paddleboarder is caught out by the tide.

In Eastbourne, on the Sussex coast, a routine day at the lifeboat station changes in an instant when a boat catches fire just outside the harbour.

In Swanage, Dorset, the crew race to the rescue of a diver whose life hangs in the balance and help a yachtsman whose hand has been badly damaged by an anchor chain. In Kinghorn, on the east coast of Scotland, a swimmer is swept out to sea and is at severe risk of hypothermia. On Holywell beach in Newquay, a multi-agency operation kicks into gear when a walker suffers a serious injury.

In Thurso, Scotland’s most northerly mainland station, the crew race to the rescue of an ocean-going rower who’s run into trouble 40 miles out to sea. In Dungeness, on the Kent coast, there are two very different shouts for the crew to deal with: an 11-year-old boy who has drifted out to sea on an inflatable dinghy and three people who are attempting to cross the English Channel at night. And in Newhaven, Sussex, a dog has fallen over 100 feet from the cliffs at Seaford.

In Kinghorn, on Scotland’s east coast, a simple call out for the RNLI crew to a paddleboarder in difficulty isn’t all that it seems.

In Baltimore, south west Ireland, the crew are called out to reports of a solo sailor clinging onto his upturned catamaran over 70 miles out to sea.