131 SPONSORED BY PREMIER NOSS ON DART


NEWS FROM THE RNLI LIFEBOAT TEAM IN DARTMOUTH


2017 WAS RNLI DART’S BUSIEST YEAR WITH A TOTAL OF 47 LAUNCHES. A total of 59 adults, one young person and a whale were assisted and one life was saved. November 7th was also the 10th anniversa- ry of the station becoming operational. The volunteers at Dart were afloat on service for a total of 59 hours. The charity’s lifeboats launched on a total of 8436 times in the year, of which 570 were by RNLI lifeboats around the coast of Devon. The highest percentage of our requests for help was


BLAST! FILMS ARE ALREADY BUSY IN THE SOUTH WEST SHOOTING FILM FOR THE THIRD SERIES OF ‘SAVING LIVES AT SEA’. The programmes are built around video footage taken on actual rescues by RNLI lifeboat crews and lifeguards. Three film crews will be working continuously on the project until August. One of the crews began in Sal- combe at the end of March and then moved to spend a week in Dartmouth. Before they chose which lifeboat stations to visit the film producers look at videos edited by the local Lifeboat Press Officers which have been published on the central RNLI Video Library and are already in the public domain. Blast! Films then ask for the entire original footage to be sent to them to re-edit. During their time at the life- boat station they film general views of the surrounding area; in our case the river and the local coastline. They then go on to film launches and scenes as the crew ar- rive at the station and prepare to launch. The volunteers on the launches that have been highlighted are then interviewed and, if they are willing and available, those who have been rescued. The series is due to go out on BBC 2 in the autumn.


from vessels in Start Bay. This was usually to private an- gling boats, motor cruisers and yachts with engine failure and follows the trend of increasing numbers of vessels using the harbour. Usually the vessel in need of help was clearly identifiable, but on occasions the volunteers at the National Coastwatch station at Froward Point were able to help in identification when the position given was incorrect or it had moved after the initial signal and not given a progress report to the Coastguard.


Start Bay 42%


Dartmouth Harbour 30%


Up river 13%


Dart estuary 10%


As might be expected the highest percentage of call


outs were during daylight hours when the majority of peo- ple were on the water, but 30% of launches were to people in difficulty after dark and, during the winter, weekly train- ing of all the crew takes place to work in this situation. Our flank stations are called by the Coastguard when


an all weather lifeboat is a more appropriate vessel or when the Dart inshore lifeboat can work alongside them. The Torbay Severn class ALB is based in Brixham and there is a Tamar class ALB in Salcombe. Over the year the Torbay lifeboat towed in a trawler that was taking on water after the Dart crew had taken out an additional salvage pump. Torbay ALB also attended a yacht with engine failure that was found by the Dart crew over 8 miles out in Start Bay. When there was the need to search for a missing person and the precise location was unknown the land based lo- cal coastguard teams searched the shore and cliffs whilst the inshore lifeboat carried out a shoreline search with the ALB carried out a search further offshore. Dart lifeboat has also worked alongside the Sal- combe lifeboat. One such was to tow a rudderless


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