Rye Harbour's C Class inflatable lifeboat was called out by Dover Coastguard at 1115 on Sunday 9 July to what would prove to be probably its busiest day since the station opened.

Hot weather had drawn huge crowds to Camber Sands in Kent (one Coastguard later said 'I think most of London was there!') and an offshore breeze had freshened to the point where it was busy blowing small inflatable toys out to sea.

Hastings lifeboat was already at the scene helping one inflatable ashore but because of her draft the all-weather Mersey class lifeboat could not get close enough to return the casualties to the beach. After Rye Harbour's C class was launched at 1120 and had arrived at the scene the Mersey returned to station to leave the inflatable lifeboat to continue the service.

After fifteen minutes the C class had already taken two empty dinghies back to shore and returned to her station to change a crew member.

Leaving the river mouth again, the lifeboat crew spotted a rubber dinghy with two people on board, some half a mile offshore. The occupants were transferred to the lifeboat and taken back to the shore with their dinghy.

The lifeboat assisted a further five dinghies, and the crew soon realised that by the time one casualty had been returned to the shore some of those remaining afloat had drifted out into trouble.

The exhausted lifeboatmen requested a crew change and were replaced at 1315.

The lifeboat set out to the east, a quarter of a mile from shore, to set up a boundary in which to keep the bathers and inflatables.

The crew then headed back to the west and, after receiving a report of a missing child, requested Coastguard backup. The child was found safe and well shortly afterwards.

The C class lifeboat continued to patrol the quarter-mile boundary despite extremely hot weather conditions. Even though the Coastguard was by now making loud-hailer appeals on the beach asking people not to take inflatables into the water and despite broadcast appeals on local radio the mayhem continued! Dur-ing the day the lifeboat dealt with numerous further incidents, including the rescue of a drifting dinghy without paddles, a dinghy dangerously close to being swept out to sea on the ebbing tide and returning numerous inflatables to the shore.

Between 1120 to 1636 when the lifeboat finally returned to station, an incredible 29 people had been rescued from inflatable toys and dinghies!.