‘I Can’t Thank Them Enough’

The return of BBC2’s Saving Lives at Sea saw attention turn to where the RNLI truly began, here in Manx waters.

This week’s episode saw the focus on Port St Mary’s volunteers and their rescue of three people from a yacht that saw them commended for their seamanship.

The island was introduced by teacher, and RNLI volunteer, Chris Hill, who explained about the island’s self governing status.

Focussing in on Port St Mary, the episode heard from Richard Leigh, also a teacher and RNLI volunteer, who described the ‘typical small village by the sea’.

Chris explained: ‘Given our locality in the Irish Sea, we have a variety of vessels and water users. A lot use it as a stop off, they’ll stop in, have a night’s sleep, a rest, a re-fuel, recuperate and bounce along on their onward journey.’

There has been a station at Port St Mary since 1896, with the station currently home to two lifeboats, the Trent All Weather lifeboat and the smaller inshore lifeboat.

Turning back the clock to early November 2021, Chris remembered being awake watching TV at about 5.45am when his pager went off. Spookily he was watching Saving Lives at Sea and said it took him a minute to work out if it was his pager or one on the TV that he could hear.

But it was his and across Port St Mary, pagers for the other volunteers were going off too.

Richard said: ‘The initial information upon arriving at the boat house was that there was a yacht on the Carrick Rock, we didn’t know how many persons were on board at the time.’

Chris added: ‘They were quite close to the Carrick at low water, so there was quite a danger of them being pushed onto the rocks.’

As they didn’t know how many people were on the yacht, or its current condition, the decision was made to launch both lifeboats out into the dark winter sea, with the crews only realising how choppy the water was when they headed out.

Having assessed the yacht, the crews realised that the yacht was caught on a lobster pot.

As dawn began to break, Chris said it was clear that time was not on their side as the yacht was drifting closer to Carrick Rock.

He said: ‘Whatever needed to happen, needed to happen soon.’

As it was too risky for the larger boat to approach the yacht, the decision was taken to remove the three people from the yacht using the inshore boat.

Originally taking one of the yachtsmen at a time, the decision was made to take both of the remaining people on board in one trip due to fears that the anchor or lobster pot might break.

Billy, one of the men they saved, himself a former RNLI volunteer in Scotland, explained that he had just bought the yacht and they were sailing it from Liverpool to Scotland.

He said: ‘We were aware of some bad weather that was forming in the Irish Sea so took the sail to the Isle of Man. It was probably around 5am or something the morning, we were making ready to enter the harbour and all of a sudden, there was a clanging noise from below.

‘I instantly recognised it as something around the propeller. The wind and the sea was pushing us towards the rocks, so we had to make the decision to deploy the anchor, to try and to stop us before we reached the rocks.

‘We were at the mercy of the sea, ultimately. I asked one of my colleagues to put out to the coastguard for some assistance, Port st Mary Lifeboat were with us within a matter of minutes.’

While enjoying a breakfast in a hotel, Billy was told over the phone that his yacht had broken free from its anchor. The yacht had collided with the Carrick and ultimately capsized.

Chris admitted to having ‘mixed emotions’ seen the boat sink, as while that was a shame, ‘we got those guys off’.

Billy recognised that thew would likely have had a far worse outcome were it not for the volunteers at Port St Mary and said of the crew ‘I can’t thank them enough’.

We hope the focus on Port St Mary RNLI, as well as Douglas next week, shines a real light on these brave souls who volunteer to risk their own lives to head out in dangerous conditions to rescue people and, as in this instance, literally save lives.

So here’s to all the island’s RNLI volunteers and staff, none of us know if one day we may the ones they come out to rescue and we’re bloody glad they’ll be there if that happens. As Chris warned in the episode: ‘Anyone can get caught out at any time.’