Today is RNLI SOS day. The annual fundraising day for the RNLI.
Lots of mad activities are happening across the UK to bring in funds so the Lifeboat and Lifeguard services can still run.
Earlier this week the RNLI released the rescue statistics for 2010.
“Last year RNLI lifeboats in the south west spent nearly 2,000 hours at sea on emergency call outs, that’s the equivalent of 81 days saving lives at sea*, and the charity’s lifeguards faced their busiest season ever. In total, the 35 lifeboat stations in the south west* launched 1,552 times and rescued 1,559 people. RNLI lifeguards dealt with 12,946 incidents, assisting 14,703 people on the region’s beaches.
The 2010 figures are revealed in the week that the RNLI are preparing for the charity’s biggest day of fundraising, SOS Day, on Friday 28 January.
It’s been another busy year for the volunteer lifeboat crews with the RNLI inshore lifeboats launching more than a thousand times and the crews of both the inshore and all-weather lifeboats putting to sea during the hours of darkness more than 600 times.The busiest stations included Poole in Dorset (148 launches), Plymouth in Devon (107 launches), Torbay in Devon (90 launches) and Weymouth in Dorset and Newquay in Cornwall who both responded to 77 emergency calls.
The RNLI’s lifeguards who patrol over 90 beaches across Cornwall, Devon and Dorset has their busiest season since the service started in 2001, and a 26% increase in incidents compared to 2009. The busiest beaches were Perranporth in Cornwall (808 incidents), followed by Gwithian in Cornwall (590 incidents), Woolacombe in north Devon (544 incidents) and Bournemouth East in Dorset, where RNLI lifeguards dealt with 487 incidents.
Adrian Carey, RNLI Divisional Inspector, says the figures illustrate the impressive and continuing commitment of the charity’s volunteer lifeboat crews and lifeguards:
‘An illustration of this commitment has to be the service to the Polish sail training vessel, Fryderyk Chopin. Three south west lifeboat volunteer crews responded one after the other to support the stricken vessel, spending more than 60 hours at sea*. It is this extraordinary devotion to our charity that makes the service provided by the RNLI so unique. It has been another busy year and I once again thank all our volunteers, including those who help launch the lifeboats and those who run our lifeboat stations behind the scenes, for their hard work.
‘Meanwhile in response to people using the water earlier, and even later in the year, the RNLI are continuing to extend traditional patrols and the lifeguard season is getting longer and longer. We now have RNLI lifeguards patrolling Boscombe beach in Dorset 365 days a year, and such is the commitment of the lifeguards to maintaining safety on the beach, a team provided a voluntary patrol on Newquay’s Fistral beach during weekends in November.
‘On Friday, many of these volunteers are also planning to support the charity’s fundraising efforts. Along side hundreds of dedicated supporters they will host SOS events across the region. From Soap Our Saloons in Burnham, to Swift On Saddles at Penlee and Spare Or Strike at Weymouth.’
Adrian also took the opportunity to remind those using the water to take their safety seriously, he continued:
‘More than half of our lifeboat call outs continue to be to pleasure craft which isn’t surprising in a popular leisure area like the south west, but machinery failure in power and sailing boats is still the main reason why people get into trouble and in many cases this could be avoided. The RNLI continues to address this through the charity’s growing band of volunteer Lifeboat Sea Safety Officers who promote safety advice and the importance of getting suitable training before going to sea*.
‘On the beaches, the year on year increase in incidents just illustrates how essential the lifeguard service is to a region famed for its coastline. Alongside bodyboarding and surfing, which have always been popular, other water sports like kayaking and kite surfing, have seen a boom over the last few years. Even on the wettest day, it’s not unusual to see plenty of people in the water, and over 54 per cent of the incidents the lifeguards responded to were to these activities. The RNLI produce safety tips on all these sports and the lifeguards provide advice, intended to prevent incidents before they occur.”
Last season although I wasn’t working for the RNLI on the beach I volunteered as a lifeguard on quite a few occasions and undertook several rescues that will have formed part of these statistics.
