Payback time Sailor Graham Wills has always supported the RNLI but, as he tells Rory Stamp, a rather unpleasant experience led him to go a little further for the charity When the flashing blue light appeared through the darkness, Graham Wills sighed with relief.

His new yacht, his pride and joy, was snared in a trawl net. Wrapped around the propeller, rudder and keel, it had left Graham and his two crew members trapped a mile and a half off Cornwall’s Lizard peninsula.

Graham wasn’t short of boating experience – he had taken up sailing at the age of 16, eagerly grabbing any chance to crew different boats until, in 2000, he took on his biggest test yet: sailing around the world in the BT Global Challenge.

Then he decided to buy a yacht of his own. And so, in April 2003, he set off from Weymouth, Dorset, to take his new Moody S38 around the south west tip of Cornwall to his home town of Burnham-on- Sea in Somerset.

He and his crew (two friends with Yachtmaster qualifications) were making good progress on a night passage from Falmouth to Newlyn when they hit the net. All three were standing watch at the time, but it was a moonless night and they did not spot the unmarked hazard. There was a slight swell and little wind, and they were stuck fast. Graham had no choice but to radio for help.

‘When the Falmouth lifeboat arrived, I had such mixed feelings,’ says Graham, 58. ‘It was indescribable relief as the lifeboat approached us, but then frustration because she didn’t initially come alongside. But none of us had stopped to think that the Coxswain didn’t want to run into the trawl net as well! Shock came when we realised the yacht may have to be abandoned.’ Fortunately the lifeboat crew managed to cut the yacht free, and she was towed to harbour with her exhausted but grateful crew.

Graham, a retired banker, has never forgotten the help he received that night. ‘If I were younger, I would love to be a crew member but of course there are a lot of other ways in which I hope to be able to help’ In the same year as his rescue, a new RNLI lifeboat station was opened near his home.

Keen to lend his time and experience to the charity that had rescued him and his yacht, Graham became station Treasurer in 2005 and, in 2007, was appointed Chairman.

‘If I were younger, I would love to be a crew member but of course there are a lot of other ways in which I hope to be able to help,’ says Graham, whose role includes chairing meetings, giving presentations and accepting donations on the station’s behalf. ‘My involvement provides a way to repay the RNLI for the help and support that I was given.’ The rescue off Falmouth was by no means Graham’s worst experience at sea.

While taking part in the BT Global Challenge, he and his fellow competitors hit extreme weather between New Zealand and South Africa. ‘On the passage from Wellington we were knocked down and I dislocated my left shoulder.’ On the same leg of the race, the yacht suffered another knock down in the notorious Southern Ocean. ‘That time I thought I had broken my back,’ says Graham.

‘I wish I could have been taken off the yacht by an RNLI lifeboat!’ Once Graham and the crew arrived in Cape Town, a hospital visit showed he had crushed a disc in his spine. ‘At times it still troubles me, but I wouldn’t have missed the race experience,’ he adds.

Such experiences of the sea’s raw power prompt a range of emotions in Graham every time he witnesses the Burnham-on-Sea lifeboat launch: ‘I’m proud that they willingly put themselves on the line for others and am concerned for their safety,’ he says of the crew. He is also grateful for the opportunity to volunteer for the charity. ‘Being retired provides a challenge in terms of what to do with one’s free time, but there’s lots you can do to support the RNLI. You’ll be rewarded with new friends and the knowledge that you’re doing something for a very worthwhile cause – which I can definitely vouch for!’ .