Busy 2012 for Falmouth Lifeboat

New figures from the RNLI show that Falmouth lifeboat was the busiest in Cornwall during 2012. The crew launched 82 times during the course of the year and notched up over a thousand hours at sea.

The inshore lifeboat launched 51 times while the all weather lifeboat was called out 31 times. 39 of the calls were in the dark.

In total 65 people were assisted by the Falmouth lifeboats.

RNLI lifeguards in Cornwall also reported a busy 2012 although figures are down on previous years, which has been blamed largely on the weather.

Across the seven beaches in the Carrick area, which includes Gyllynvase in Falmouth, RNLI lifeguards dealt with a total of 1,444 incidents during the year. They assisted 1,631 people and saved six lives.

The other beaches in the area are Chapel Porth, Holywell, Perran Sands, Perranporth, Porthtowan and St Agnes.

Andy Hurley, RNLI Regional Operations Manager, commented: "The figures illustrate just how dedicated our volunteer crews and our lifeguards are, giving a huge amount of time to saving lives at sea and I thank them and their families for their continuing commitment.

I would also like to thank all those who support our charity because their donations ensure our teams have the best training and equipment."

He added: "Call outs to sailing and power boats with machinery failure are still our core business in the south west, but I'm delighted to say the numbers are down which I hope means our prevention messages are getting through to people before they go onto the water.

However we have seen a rise in the number of fishing boats needing our assistance and in rescues of people ashore, that's folk who are perhaps injured, trapped or cut off by the tide around the sea shore and cliffs."

"Despite the poor weather our RNLI lifeguards have been busy but the figure of 11,670 people assisted is relatively small when you consider that a staggering nine and half million people visited the lifeguarded beaches of the south west last year"