The Mumbles all weather lifeboat was last night tasked to a stricken yacht in the middle of the Bristol Channel.The yacht suffered from engine and power failure. The vessel was subsequently left with no radio, no ability to show any navigation lights and no flares.
Just after 9 pm with daylight fading and no power, the skipper of the yacht put in a distress call to Swansea Coastguard using just the fading moments of his mobile phone as it’s battery was dying. 20 minutes later the volunteer crew launched from Mumbles and was on the scene an hour later.
2nd Mechanic James Bolter said:
‘Luckily one thing he did have on board was a torch and having passed his position to the coastguard he was able to attract the attention of the boat by shining his torch at the lifeboat. We took the vessel in tow and took her back to The Mumbles. The lifeboat returned to station 3 hours later.’
Tim Conway, RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager at The Mumbles explained:
‘Here we have a stark reminder that in these days of electronic communication it is still essential to ensure all boats have the basic safety items on board including lifejackets and flares. The middle of the Bristol Channel is a dangerous place to be at any time but at night with no lights and no ability to make themselves known to other vessels even more so. The yachts skipper would have found it very difficult to take any avoiding action if he’d strayed into the path of an oncoming vessel’.
The RNLI has set a £150,000 fundraising target over the next three years towards a new £2.7m Tamar class boat for Mumbles. The Tamar lifeboats are the most advanced vessels operated by the RNLI, providing all weather rescue capabilities and will replace the current Tyne class rescue boat that currently serves Mumbles.
