Late night out for Rhyl RNLI volunteers

The all-weather lifeboat crew at Rhyl were paged at 9.31 on Friday evening of 10 September, to launch to assess a yacht with two people and two dogs.

The yacht was on passage to Rhyl harbour, but due to the still wind conditions, the skipper was using the yacht’s engine to get to Rhyl on the high tide to get into the harbour, when the engine stopped. One of the crew also had mild sea-sickness.

The skipper called the UK Coastguard co-ordinating centre at Holyhead, and requested assistance. The coastguard put out a radio broadcast for any nearby vessels to assist; but with no response, tasked Rhyl RNLI volunteers to launch and investigate the yacht’s plight.

On arrival on scene, the vessel was found to be close to the stone loading jetty at Llandulas, and so the skipper of the yacht asked for a tow to Rhyl, out of danger.

The tow was undertaken, and with the assistance of the inshore lifeboat crew and local coastguard volunteers from Rhyl and Flint, was successfully moored on the outer pontoon in Rhyl harbour by midnight.

As it was a very high tide that night, it was not possible to recover the lifeboat, and so the crew had to wait in Rhyl harbour until there was enough beach available at the station.

The lifeboat was finally in the boathouse at 3.45 the next morning, and the tired crew sought their beds, some only having a few hours sleep until they went to work later in the morning.

Coxswain Martin Jones said ‘ The yacht’s crew did the right thing by radioing the coastguard on the radio for assistance. We were able to help them into the harbour safe and well’

Pics. Paul Frost MBE, Rhyl RNLI press officer; and Dean Wood.