Criccieth RNLI volunteers launched the lifeboats three times on service on Good Friday.
Shortly after 2pm both the Atlantic 85 lifeboat and the Arancia IRB were launched to search for a missing five year old boy at Black Rock beach. He had been missing for forty minutes by the time the coastguard were informed about the incident. Happily after a very short search involving the lifeboats at sea and the beach patrol, police and coastguards ashore the little boy was found safe and well ashore.
At 6.25pm the Atlantic 85 lifeboat was launched to an inflatable dinghy with two women in their twenties aboard that was drifting out to sea off Mochras Point. The lifeboat covered the eight miles to the casualty in twelve minutes from launching and found the two women trying to row the dinghy with cardboard boxes. They had no oars or paddles, no lifejackets and no means of communicating their distress to the shore. Luckily for them they had been spotted by people on the beach over five hundred yards away. Both women were cold and had to be placed in survivor smocks. The lifeboat took them and their dinghy ashore into the care of the Harlech coastguard response team.
Commenting on the rescue Peter Williams, Criccieth Lifeboat Operations Manager, said:
‘Both these young women from the Staffordshire area were extremely lucky that the lifeboat got to them so quickly as a result of which their lives were saved. It is essential that those who go to sea have either a mobile phone, carry flares or have a radio with them. It’s been a busy week for the station with seven launches and four lives saved.’
