Greek tragedy? Never could five members of the Redcar lifeboat station have imagined that their sailing holiday, 1,300 nautical miles from home, would turn into a life-saving rescue mission involving great skill and seamanship.

Michael Picknett and his crew were taking part in a regatta off the Creek island of Levkas on 23 September 2004, when their radio picked up a distress call from another craft a few miles away. Concerned, they left the competition, stowed their sails and, using the engine, set off at six knots for the distressed vessel.

On arrival they found the yacht's bow was completely underwater.

They quickly helped the two women off the disabled yacht, Solace, while the two men remained. With time against them, retired Redcar lifeboatman Michael Hoyle decided to join them on the sinking boat and made an emergency repair to the cause of the problem - a broken sea pipe. A tow was attached to the yacht, whilst the skipper and the remaining crew attempted to bail out as much water as possible.

She was an extremely heavy tow but the bow gradually lifted and, eventually, after a long two hours, the crew made it back to the safety of the nearby Sivota harbour. They were surprised by the rapturous reception provided by a 300-strong crowd.

'We don't often get that sort of reception when we return to Redcar lifeboat station after a job!' said Michael Picknett. 'We couldn't turn our backs when we knew another boat was in distress - that's what we train for. The worry was, no-one else had responded to the distress call.'Indian summer Baltimore lifeboat crew member Eoin Ryan was also able to put his RNLI training to good use when he was abroad, working as Captain of the Merchant Navy vessel WaveneyCastle in monsoon conditions on 16 June 2004.

Captain Ryan and his crew were moored off the coast of Mumbai in India, awaiting a pilot, when they received a Mayday distress call from the crew of the MVDorset. This 100m livestock carrier had been on her way to the scrap yards of Alang when she had been fatally damaged following a collision with another vessel - she had now sunk and her crew were stranded on a liferaft awaiting rescue. Captain Ryan immediately diverted his focus to the search and rescue mission.

When the WaveneyCastle arrived at the reported position they could not see the survivors anywhere. Captain Ryan decided to follow the potential drift of a liferaft in those conditions and eventually found seven men floating on an upturned raft - but the Bosun was nowhere to be seen.

The survivors were lifted to the safety of the Waveney Castle, and the search continued for the last man. It was decided that the Bosun would have drifted more slowly than the raft so they searched slowly back up the trail of wreckage, all the time conscious of not colliding with the submerged wreck of the Dorset.

About ten minutes later a lifejacket with a raised arm was sighted straight ahead. It proved difficult to lift the Bosun without the raft as a boarding platform and at one point he slipped out of his jacket and disappeared under the water - a worrying moment as both the vessel's bow thrusters were working. He was eventually lifted to safety, and the survivors, all Indian nationals, were taken to the shore at Mumbai.

Captain Ryan said: 'It felt great to complete the job. Had we not found him, we would always have wondered whether more could have been done to find the last man.'.