Littlehampton’s Atlantic 85 lifeboat Renée Sherman and volunteer crew launched yesterday afternoon within a few minutes of a radio request from Littlehampton coastguards who had just witnessed a powerboat sinking and its seven occupants thrown into the water. The conditions in the harbour entrance were rough, the combination of the outgoing spring tide – the River Arun is one of the fastest flowing rivers in the country – and strong winds behind the tide caused rolling waves.
The situation had also been observed by the RNLI lifeguards at Littlehampton, who headed to the scene and recovered six of the seven occupants of the casualty vessel. The seventh was a young girl who was washed onto the West Works – the barnacle encrusted wooden structure on the west side of the harbour entrance. At the scene a lifeguard and two surfers who had also witnessed the incident were supporting the girl. On arrival at the scene the lifeboat crew were able to manoeuvre the lifeboat and recover her onto the boat. She was suffering from abrasions but there was concern that the buffeting might have caused further injury and that she may have taken on some seawater. The lifeboat crew provided medical treatment and returned to the lifeboat station to await an ambulance. The other survivors had been checked by the emergency services and were in the care of the coastguard rescue team and RNLI lifeguards.
Littlehampton lifeboat and the D-Class inshore lifeboat Ray of Hope were launched again to recover the partially submerged powerboat, which was drifting away from the harbour entrance towards Rustington.
Lifeboat Operations Manager Nick White commented: “Thankfully there were no serious injuries, and the job was a great example of co-operation between our volunteer lifeboat crew, RNLI lifeguards and the Littlehampton coastguard rescue team. Crucially, two surfers were first to reach the girl and support her until help arrived. One surfer was called George Clark, we don’t know the name of the other one, but we’d like to offer our thanks to both of them.””
