Lifeboatmen swim through surf to rescue sailor Port Talbot - South West Division Two crew members of the Port Talbot lifeboat station have received letters of thanks from the chief of operations after an unusual rescue which led to a life being saved even before the station's D class inflatable was launched.

At 1045 on 19 August 1988 the coastguard informed the station's deputy launching authority of a small yacht which had been reported by several people anchored in the lee of New Harbour breakwater, but having a rough time in the surf which was running.

The coastguard mobile at the scene reported seeing someone aboard, but when the Honorary Secretary and two crew members went to observe they could see no one on the yacht.

The honorary secretary went to the harbour office to ask the coastguard to page the crew, so that the D class could check on the yacht and warn him that he was in a dangerous area, but while he was there the yacht broke adrift.

The two crew members at the scene, Harry Worth and John Baker, were experienced surf life-savers and decided to act. They waded and swam through the rough surf kicked up by the Force 7 SW wind and boarded the yacht.

Bemused They found the sole occupant, a man in his seventies, 'bemused and battered' and as the yacht went aground were able to get him safely ashore and to a first aid station.

The yachtsman was reported to have been beginning a month-long cruise and not to have eaten for three days, having mislaid his dentures.

The letter from the chief of operations commends both crew members for displaying initiative in the best traditions of the Institution..