A cold Sunday morning navigation exercise involving volunteers from Flint RNLI, ended with a great deal of reality, when a partly submerged 12′ open boat was discovered at around 10.40am in one of the river channels.
Liverpool Coastguard were advised and requested the removal of the vessel, as it was a hazard to other river users. Two lifeboat crew members bailed out the boat, and with difficulty the boat was refloated and towed to Connahs Quay slipway, where it was recovered and made safe at 12pm.
An RNLI Flint spokesman commented, our exercise was a little different to what we had planned, the fact we had the ‘exercise’ lifeboat in addition to our own station lifeboat Sir Y Fflint helped with the recovery of the craft, the lifeboat crew had a satisfactory morning’s training.
