Speedboat sinks ON THE MORNING of Easter Sunday April 7, 1985, Brixham coastguard received a report from a member of the public that a speedboat had sunk on Pole Sands and that there were some people in the water. Fifteen minutes later, at 1120, Exmouth lifeboat the 33ft Brede class, Caroline Finch, slipped her mooring and headed out to sea with Coxswain Keith Graham at the helm.

A southerly near gale, force 7, was blowing, it was raining but visibility was clear. Two hours had passed since high water and, even at the mooring, wind against tide was giving rise to three footwaves. Crossing the bar. Coxswain Graham eased back from full speed and then steered the lifeboat towards the waters around Warren Sands at the north end of Pole Sands.

When nothing was found the lifeboat headed along a course of 130°M down the deep water channel where she crossed the foot of the bar and began to search the southern expanse of Pole Sands. By now, with the force 7 southerly wind over an ebbing tide and moderate swell, the lifeboat was meeting eight foot breaking waves.

At 1140 three people were spotted in the water; as the coxswain manoeuvred the lifeboat to within ten feet of them the crew could see that one man was supporting two teenage girls, one of whom seemed unconscious. None of them was wearing a lifejacket.

The height of the waves meant that to take the lifeboat any closer would endanger the people in the water.Instead, Crew Member Geoffrey Ingram volunteered to enter the water; with his life jacket fully inflated he was able to give immediate support to the two teenage girls. The man, relieved of his burden, swam to the scrambling net at the starboard side of the lifeboat which was heading south west and providing a lee. The man found that he was too exhausted to climb the scrambling net so Crew Member Bertram Thomas also entered the water at the foot of the net to help him on board.

Meanwhile, Crew Member Ingram continued to hold the two girls up and at the same time brought them towards the lifeboat's side. Within seconds they were hoisted aboard by Coxswain Graham and Mechanic Timothy Mock while the two crew members in the water helped from the foot of the scrambling net. They, too, then reboarded the lifeboat.

At 1152 a Royal Air Force helicopter arrived at the lifeboat's position; because of the poor condition of the unconscious girl it was decided that she should be lifted into the helicopter in a stretcher so that she could be taken to Torbay Hospital without delay. The tricky manoeuvre in the high seas was completed and the lifeboat then turned for home at full speed with the remaining two conscious survivors aboard.

The crew kept them warm and comfortable, but they were in a state of shock, thought to be hypothermic and both were vomiting violently during the return passage. The ferry steps below Exmouth lifeboathouse were reached at 1225 where the survivors were immediately transferred to a waiting ambulance.

The accident had happened when their 17ft speedboat planed up vertically on striking a large wave and then sank, transom-first, on re-entering the water, plunging the three occupants, without lifejackets, into the 47°F sea.

For this service Coxswain Keith Graham was presented with the Institution's thanks on vellum while vellum service certificates were presented to Second Coxswain/Mechanic Timothy Mock, and Crew Members Geoffrey Ingram and Bertram Thomas..