Four saved from grounded crabber In a letter from the chief of operations, Padstow lifeboat crew has been praised for a service which 'was carried out in dangerous conditions' and which 'called upon each of the crew's individual skills as lifeboatmen'.At 0110 on 10 July 1991 Falmouth Coastguard requested the launch of Padstow lifeboat to aid the Weymouth crabber Kael Coz which had gone aground under cliffs at Rumps Point. Fifty feet either way and she would have ripped her bottom out on the underwater rocks.

As it was, she was hard and fast, broadside on and rolling heavily with the Atlantic swell.

The lifeboat had one option - to go straight in and out again. It was a dangerous manoeuvre, not least because of the heavy swell at the base of the cliffs and the rolling of the casualty, later abandoned as a total wreck.The coxswain successfully achieved his aim after four attempts.

The four crew jumped aboard the lifeboat, but one of them had his finger tip crushed as he did so. The lifeboat crew had recently updated their first aid skills and were able to treat the survivor's injury.

After arriving safely at Padstow Harbour, an ambulance took the injured man to hospital..