IT’S BEEN a busy start to 2022 for Angle Lifeboat crew; after two shouts in nine hours, this morning’s service made the station’s third shout in four days.
The crew were paged at 8:40am to a 42 metre heavy lift crane barge with five people on board. The barge had lost one anchor and the remaining three were dragging as it was being pushed towards the shore near Monk Haven in the Milford Haven waterway. The winds were gusting up to 50 knots and a 3.5 metre swell. A tug was attempting to secure a tow to the barge and tow her to safety.
When the all-weather lifeboat arrived on scene a local harbour tug had managed to secure a line and was towing the barge into deeper water but was struggling to manoeuvre the barge in the conditions. The lifeboat stayed nearby to provide safety cover in case the need to evacuate the five crew from the barge arose.
The tug managed to slowly tow the barge up river towards Milford shelf with assistance to manoeuvre the barge provided by barges companion tug. Once it was safely re-anchored at Milford shelf the lifeboat was able to return to her mooring at 1:35pm where her rather wet crew were able to get into the dry of the boathouse!
The first lifeboat service of 2022 for Angle volunteers came on Monday 3 January just before 9am when the crews were tasked to search for a missing person. The volunteers were tasked to search from Hobbs Point to East Angle and joined Coastguard teams from HM Coastguard Dale, St Govans and Tenby who were also tasked to undertake searches on foot. Port of Milford Haven pilot boat also assisted in the search. The lifeboat was stood down at 12:05pm and rehoused as news came through of the missing person had been found safe and well.
The volunteer crew were paged for the second shout of the year and second of the week just before 11:30pm on Wednesday (5 January) to assist in a search for a missing person. As the lifeboat was making its way to the area it was stood down just before midnight as reports came through that the person had been found safe and well.
