Volunteers at Porthcawl Lifeboat Station are currently training to ‘Race the Tamar’ to help raise vital funds for the RNLI. The challenge is part of the charity SOS Day, the RNLI’s biggest fundraising day, which took place last Friday.
RNLI lifeboat crews and supporters from across the country are challenged to run, row or cycle 8 miles faster than a Tamar class lifeboat. The new Tamar class lifeboat takes a mere 25 minutes to travel 8 miles across stormy waters, but can our volunteer lifeboat crews do any better?
Even though SOS Day has passed, volunteer lifeboat crews and RNLI supporters will continue to ‘Race the Tamar’ until March 2011 when the SOS Challenge Champion will be announced. An SOS Challenge leader board has been set up on Facebook so that lifeboat crews and other SOS competitors can keep an eye on the times to beat.
Volunteer crew at Porthcawl lifeboat station have entered two teams into the competition– one will attempt to cycle the course while the other is training to row the 8-mile distance.
The Mumbles Deputy Second Coxswain, Rob Tovey, has already successfully beaten the Tamar as he cycled 8 mile in 21 minutes 52 seconds at the LC in Swansea last Friday.
Alex Denny, volunteer helm at Porthcawl lifeboat station, explains why the station is eager to take part:
‘It was a challenge that we felt we could compete with other lifeboat stations, and helping the volunteer fundraisers to raise money for the RNLI is one of our aims during 2011.’
Porthcawl volunteer crew will set their times for the fundraising event on Saturday 5th March at the local lifeboat station. For more information on the SOS Challenge or ways of fundraising for the RNLI visit www.rnli.org.uk/sos.
