9 shouts in 7 days for Littlehampton RNLI

The RNLI crew has had a very busy week clocking up 9 calls in just 7 days, bringing the total number of shouts this year to 62.

On Thursday, ‘Blue Peter 1’ was launched after a 999 call to the coastguard. The vessel in difficulty was a 10 metre cabin cruiser with a rope around its propeller.  Of the four people on board, one was suffering from sea sickness.

Helm Keith Booth, and crew Andy Hicks and Lois Anderson located the casualty vessel four miles southwest of the harbour. Andy entered the water to cut the tangled rope from the prop. Once free the vessel was able to make its own way back into the harbour under escort from the lifeboat.

On Saturday, while out on an exercise, the crew spotted several capsized dinghies off Felpham. They recovered two children from the water and transferred them to the nearby safety boat and righted the overturned dinghies.

The next two took place on Monday 29th, the first launch at 10:57am to a broken down dive boat which they took under tow back to the harbour. The second, a broken down motor boat already under tow from a passing boat which had insufficient power to continue.

Shout number 5 was on Wednesday at 6:04pm after a 999 call reported a floating object in the water, five miles west of the harbour, approximately 500 metres offshore in the Bognor area. After a thorough search nothing was found so crew Andy Harris, Keith Booth and Rob Devo returned to Littlehampton.

Littlehampton’s D-class lifeboat ‘The Spirit of Juniper’ was launched on Thursday 1 September at 10:00pm after a 999 call from a man concerned that his two brothers had not returned from their jolly on jet skis somewhere off west beach.

The casualties were quickly located by the crew and began to tow the one broken down jet ski back into the harbour. On transit the second jet ski also suffered some engine problems and required assistance so the crew towed them both back to the slipway.

Calls 7 and 8 were on Friday, both D-class launches. The first at 08:04am, the second 08:40am, both 999 calls, both casualties of the four legged variety.  Doggies Jess and Star decided to go for a little swim in the very fast flowing River Arun. All was well and both were reunited with their owners without too much drama.

Finally call out number 9. Littlehampton launched its D-class lifeboat again on Friday at 8:32pm after a call from a lone man on board a 6.7 metre leisure boat stuck on rocks with a rope around its prop.  The lifeboat towed the vessel out to deeper water to await the tide to allow the casualty to make it over the bar at the entrance to the River Arun.  Eventually at 11:10pm there was sufficient water to escort the boat to the marina. The lifeboat was refuelled and ready for service at midnight.

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