Saving Lives at Sea

For many lifeboat crews, volunteering runs in the family, stretching back generations, while for others working so closely together means crewmates can often become like a second family. At Swanage lifeboat station, two brothers Matt and Gavin, following in t ir father’s footsteps, race to rescue a pair of novice paddleboarders before they are swept out into the busy shipping lanes. On the north east coast, the tight-knit crew at Withernsea scour the North Sea searching for a local fisherman, and friend of the crew, who is missing at sea. Meanwhile on the opposite side of the country in Blackpool, a volunteer’s wedding day is interrupted by an urgent call for help.

When the pagers sound, the only thing the volunteers know for sure is to expect the unexpected. The unpredictable seas around Britain’s coast mean they can be called out to everything and anything. On the Wirral coast, the crew of Hoylake’s rescue hovercraft are called out to an unconventional casualty – a porpoise stranded by the outgoing tide. Meanwhile, 200 miles to the north, there is another unusual victim of the British tides - a teenage wedding guest in suit and tie is plucked off a fast-disappearing rocky outcrop in the middle of the sea by the Kinghorn crew. And in Cornwall, the Penlee lifeboat crew receive a dreaded call – a fishing boat, skippered by a fisherman the crew all know, is in flames miles out at sea.

The lifeboat crews are on call all year round, but it is in the summer months when they are at their busiest. While the crowds that flock to the coast relax and soak up the sun, the lifeboat crews and lifeguard teams are on high alert. In the Irish resort of Skerries, the pagers bring the crew running to the station when strong winds sweep a teenager on a paddleboard out to sea and towards the busy shipping lanes of the Irish Sea.

The volunteers of the RNLI race to save a sinking schooner and a walker with a broken leg, while cries for help in the early hours of the morning lead to an eerie night-time search.

The volunteers of the RNLI race to save a stricken fishing boat in a force-eight gale, a yacht trapped on a weir in Loch Ness and a puppy that has swallowed a fishing hook.

The thousands of lifeboat volunteers across the UK and Ireland are willing to put their lives on the line to rescue those in danger at a moment’s notice. Once they have launched, they have to place their trust in their training, their equipment and, most importantly of all, their fellow crew members. They also know that they will have to ask strangers who may be in pain, fear and mortal danger to put their trust in them. In the fast-flowing and treacherous currents of the Bristol Channel, the crew of a Weston-super-Mare lifeboat face one of their most critical shouts ever, as a routine call-out turns into a race to save three casualties who have been caught by a rising tide, are exhausted from trying to swim against the current and are now in grave danger. On the north east coast of England, an angry sea has trapped a father and son against a cliff face with no way out. The Redcar crew race to reach them before the last strip of dry of land disappears under the waves. Meanwhile, in Swanage on the south coast, both of the station’s lifeboats launch when two mayday calls come in back to back, one to a grounded yacht and the other to a skipper who has suffered a severe injury after catching a hand in his yacht’s winch.

The RNLI volunteers search for a missing kitesurfer, race to rescue a father and daughter being swept out to sea and try to save all nine lives of a casualty in the Thames.

The RNLI volunteers race to save a teenage paddleboarder being swept out to sea, a sinking cargo ship and a yacht being battered by an Atlantic storm.