• Wo matter how experienced and well prepared you are every small-boat sailor knows that problems can still arise seemingly out of the blue. This was some consolation to the RNLI's own Chief of Operations during the Round the Island Race in June 1996, when the rig of his 28- footer came down round his ears for no apparent reason.

Lymington's Atlantic duly arrived alongside a previously unidentified and dismasted 28-footer only to find their boss conducting his own survey of the service supplied by his department!Ashore on the Shingles Visitors to Lymington's boathouse during Lifeboat Stations Open Days on 26 May 1996 were treated to a taste of the real thing when their Atlantic was suddenly called away to a real 'shout', at first to assist Yarmouth's Arun but then diverted to to a yacht stranded on the Middle Shingle Bank at the entrance to the Solent.

Arriving on scene at about 1335 the lifeboat found the yacht, Racy Lady, well and truly aground with the seas kicked up by a Force 7 wind breaking completely over her hull.

It was too dangerous to put the lifeboat alongside, so crew member Falcon Hawkins swam a line across to establish the tow.

However as the Atlantic attempted to pull Racy Lady deaf the yacht's cleat pulled out from the deck, and it was decided that it would be safer to take off the three crew by helicopter. They were taken ashore and Falcon Hawkins was airlifted back aboard the lifeboat - his impromptu swim, and help with the helicopter transfer later earning him a letter of congratulations from the RNLI's Director.Waves stop play - and an apt destination Minehead's D class lifeboat carried out a service on 23 July which saved two people and their yacht in difficult condition, but which was somewhat overshadowed in press reports by the interruption of their cricket match and the subsequent destination of the survivors! The crew were indeed in the middle of a cricket match when their pagers went off and they were called to the aid of Tumbleweed, a 21ft yacht aground on nearby Warren Point, in an onshore wind up to Force 5.

After the first attempt to tow her off failed the inflatable went in again, with waves breaking over both Tumbieweedand lifeboat, and two of her crew members went into the water and managed to get the yacht's head into the wind and reconnect the tow. For about ten minutes they held this position, with the lifeboat's prop occasionally hitting the stony bottom and the yacht bumping heavily. But at last a bigger wave lifted her and she began to move, with the two lifeboat crew scrambling aboard.

There was not enough water in Minehead harbour and with the female yacht crew member looking very pale she was taken ashore while the yacht was anchored, with a lifeboatman aboard, to wait for enough water.

It was only after landing that the lifeboat crew realised that they had three stumps instead of blades on the prop! It was changed immediately and as soon as there was enough water in the harbour Tumble weed started her engine and came in, escorted by the lifeboatand justasdarknessfell.

The yacht skipper was re-united with his wife in the boathouse, to find she'd booked a room ashore - in the 'Old Ship Aground'!Joint service saves vessel and crew St Bees inshore lifeboat and Workington's relief all-weather Mersey worked together to save the 65ft fishing vessel Capella and her crew of four on 14 July 1996.

The St Bees Atlantic was already standing by when the Mersey, Lifetime Care, arrived at 0515 to find Capella aground, down by the stern and listing to port as she filled on the flooding tide. The lifeboat's salvage pump could not keep up with the flow, so a fire pump was called for and all valuables taken aboard Lifetime Care.

With nothing to lose in trying to float her off, a tow line was put on the starboard quarter and Capella partially righted as she came clear, levelling herself up but very low in the water. Ten minutes later St Bees' Atlantic returned with the fire service, and with two pumps running the casualty was towed safely to Whitehaven.Disabled longliner towed to safety in Force 9 Gale and 20ft seas Towing a fishing vessel of virtually ten times the displacement of the lifeboat isn't easy, to do so in seas averaging 20ft high and winds up to Force 9 is more difficult still. Add some snow squalls, visibility bad enough to leave the casualty visible only on radar and you have some idea why Aith lifeboat's coxswain Hylton Henry was awarded the RNLI's Thanks on Vellum for a service to the Norwegian fishing vessel Vindhammer in February 1996.

The propeller of the 115ft longliner had be- up speed a little, easing Aith Scotland come fouled some 40 miles to the NW of the station on 7 February 1996, leaving her drifting at the mercy of a Severe Gale from the SSE, beam on to breaking seas more than 20ft high.

At 0630 the Coastguard had told the station of the plight of Vindhammer and her eleven man crew, and half-an-hour later Aith's Arun class Snolda was on her way to sea.

Snolda is the only steel-built Arun and although a little heavier than her glassf ibre sisters her displacement of 32.5 tonnes was still dwarfed by the 310 tonnes of the vessel she was going to rescue.

Clear of the land at Muckle Roe the sea began to build up from the port quarter. Coxswain Henry remarked that coming from SSE they were steeper than those they more usually experienced rolling in from the open NW. Five or six times Snolda almost broached in the growing seas, coxswain Henry taking things in his stride - 'we took off all the power and straightened her up' - and maintaining about 18 knots.

The lifeboat had allowed for Vindhammer's drift and by 0915 she was at the scene, manoeuvring up to her in the breaking seas and successfully passing a tow line at the third attempt.

By 0930 the tow was secure, and Coxswain Henry began to make for the nearest shelter in Yell Sound, a distance of some 25 miles.

The seas were now almost on the beam, the occasional one peaking at over 30ft, and Snolda was only able to make about two or three knots with the 300-tonne longliner in tow. As the winds gusted up to Force 9 she had to come up into the wind and sea to prevent damage and too much leeway, easing back on course in the respite between the snow showers when the wind dropped to around Force 7 to 8.

The 220m tow line was not long enough to take out all of the snatch, and an extra 400m was added from the fishing vessel. With more than a quarter of a mile of tow line out Snolda began to pick her way towards the shelter of Yell Sound at about four and a half knots. With this length of towand poor visibility in the snow squalls Vindhammer was sometimes only visible on the lifeboat's radar.

The tow had to be halted five times to 'freshen the nip' (change the point where the line chafed) and it was not until 1530 that the lifeboat and casualty eased their way into the shelter of the sound.

Even here the Force 9windhada 10 mile 'fetch' of open water and a steep, sharp sea was running.

Coxswain Henry had originally intended to berth the casualty at one of the piers in the Sound, but they were all occupied by fishing vessels sheltering from the storm. The wind had led to the suspension of all tanker movements, so it was possible to use a berth known as the Construction Pier at the oil terminal.

Although now sheltered from the seas Coxswain Henry faced the tricky task of safely berthing the large fishing vessel, which he did by easing up into the wind and, by carefully applying power and then easing off, positioned Vindhammer so that the wind blew her safely alongside the pier at 1815 The tow had taken nearly nine hours.

Although Snolda was now only about ten miles from home as the crow flies it was around 40 miles by sea. So, after refuelling and a bite to eat, the crew took her back out into the gale, finally berthing at Aith at 2215, fifteen and a half hours after she had left.Three rescued in high winds... and mud When Whitstable's Atlantic was called out to rescue two adults and an eightyear- old from a 24ft yacht the crew found themselves dealing not only with breaking seas and Force 6-7 winds but also hampered by thick mud.

Having been alerted to the plight of the yacht Mtoto, which was only about 4 miles away from the station, the Atlantic was at the scene at 1900 on 6 August 1996, less than ten minutes after launching.

She found the yacht aground on the northern, windward, side of the Horse Sands, lying over on her port side with breaking seas to starboard and the family of three still aboard.

The helmsman, Nigel Scammell, was able to bring the lifeboat in on the leeward side until she was about 100 yards away, but as she could not get any closer through the shallows a crew member had to wade across to Mtoto to find out the situation on board.

A cockle dredger had been working in the area shortly before and as a result the bottom had been disturbed, leaving very soft mud underfoot.

The three people aboard the yacht were very cold and wet and it was decided to take them ashore.

The second crew member waded across with a line to help them back to the lifeboat but it soon became obvious that with the weather conditions, the mud and the very tired state of the survivors that something else needed to be done.

The yacht was carrying a small inflatable tender and once this had been inflated it proved to be the ideal method of ferrying the three people back to the lifeboat-although the thick mud made the task difficult and uncomfortable for crew members Chris Houghton and Paul Holden as they hauled themselves and the dinghy full of survivors to safety.

By 2005 the survivors were back at the boathouse, being warmed and given hot drinks.

Although tired, cold and wet they were all unhurt.Erin's dogged determination! Whitstable's Atlantic had been involved in a very different service a few months earlier. Erin, a two-andhalf- year old Labrador-Doberman cross had grown bored of watching his dog-walkers Nick Warne and Jo Brand enjoying their windsurfing and decided to swim out to join in. Although a powerful swimmer he was no match for the sailboards and soon grew so tired he had no option but to climb aboard Jo's board.

Sailboard'sare not the easiest of things to control in the first place, and the presence of a large black dog doesn't help! Jo soon found herself having trouble keeping control, and with wind and tide taking them further from the shore it was fortunate that Whitstable lifeboat was out on exercise and was able to lend a hand.Something completely different...

Newbiggin's lifeboat crew were able to use their fire extinguishers and training to put out a fire... without even going afloat.

They spotted smoke coming from a house which had been struck by lightning and then dicovered that the occupants were completely unaware of the situation.

They dashed to the boathouse, grabbed the fire extinguishers and had the fire out before the Fire Brigade arrived. Crew member Richard Martin said: 'It made a pleasant change to be able to help someone on dry land instead of having to put to sea.' Two saved from sinking fishing boat Cullercoat's Atlantic was called out to the fishing boat Cormorant when she began taking water about two miles to the east of the station on 31 March 1996.

It took less than five minutes from receiving the Coastguard's call for the lifeboat to launch and only another four minutes for her to reach the casualty, which was leaking very badly.

One of her crew stayed aboard initiallyto tend the towand bail, but with the vessel in danger of capsizing he too was soon taken aboard the lifeboat. The Atlantic began a very gentle tow home and Cormorant was finally brought back to harbour at Cullercoats after an hour and a half.TOW ESTABLISHED LESS THAN 300ft FROM SHORE Five saved as fishing vessel drags ashore in storm force winds Arocky cove backed with high cliffs is no place to be when a severe onshore gale, gusting to Storm Force, is pounding the coast, but that is exactly the situation Coxswain Pat Marshall and the crew of the Plymouth lifeboat found themselves in on 6 September last year.

Despite being so close to the steep cliffs that the 12ft seas were further confused as they bounced back off the cliff the lifeboat crew was able to get a tow line aboard a fishing vessel, which was by then only 300ft from the shore, and save both the boat and her five man crew.

When reporting on the service the Divisional Inspector remarked that without the lifeboat's intervention '...there can be no doubt that the vessel would have been stranded below Rame Head with the probable loss of her crew.' Coxswain Marshall's bold approach, good seamanship and his complete command of the situation earned him the RNLI's Thanks on Vellum, with the rest of the crew being awarded Vellum Service Certificates.

Coxswain Marshall had heard about the situation on his scanner and was already on his way to the lifeboat when the alarm was raised by the Coastguard at 1443 on Wednesday 6 September 1995.

The fishing vessel, the 76ft Senex Fidelis, had been returning to Plymouth from her fishing grounds c o Rame Head when trouble struck. Problems with her fuel system disabled her engines and, although she had been able to anchor, she was now dragging inexorably towards the rugged Cornish coast just to the east of Rame Head. A south-easterly severe gale was gusting between Force 8 and 10 at the scene and it was only a matter of time, and a short time, before Senex F/ctefcwould go ashore.

It was close to high water so Plymouth's Arun class City of Plymouth was able to take the shortest route through the narrow passage inside Drake's Island. Even when clear of the shelter of the outer breakwater she held her maximum speed, despite seas at least 12ft high just forward of the beam.

Again taking the shortest route possible City of Plymouth went inside the buoy marking offlying rocks off Penlee Point and altered course towards the casualty, by now desperately close to the shore in a small cove on the eastern side of Rame Head.

She was almost head to wind and sea and her trawl beams had been lowered to try to steady her. Briefing her skipper on the radio Coxswain Marshall took the lifeboat around her stern - so close inshore that the Coastguards in the cliff-top lookout lost sight of her - and manoeuvred up Senex Fidelis'sstarboard side around the protruding trawl beams. Although the lifeboat was being thrown about violently and shipping heavy water as the seas hit the cliff and rebounded back a heaving line was passed at the first attempt and a tow line passed. In perhaps the understatement of the year Pat Marshall said later: 'It was a good pick-up. Everything went well.' The tricky business of extricating the casualty then began, with the Arun easing ahead and paying out the long towing warp behind her.

Eventually she could start to take the strain and as gently as possible she began to tow the fishing vessel to seaward into the teeth of the wind and sea. It took some 40 minutes after the tow had been passed before the lifeboat and casualty had made a couple of miles 'offing' and Coxswain Marshall felt it was safe to turn away from the seas and head for the safety of Plymouth.The crew Thanks on Vellum: Coxswain Pat Marshall Vellum Service Certificates: 2nd Coxswain Keith Rimmer Mechanic Derek Studden Dpty 2nd Coxswain Dave Milford Crew members Paul Millett Dave Hole Martin Emden The lifeboat Arun class City of Plymouth Operational No. 52-40.