Poole Lifeboat Station Open Day - August 7th 2005.

The sun shone and the visitors flocked down to Poole Lifeboat Station Open Day.

Each year the Lifeboat station opens its doors to let people come and have a look behind the scenes.

(click on the thumbnails below to view each picture)

At 12 noon both lifeboats demonstrated a real life rescue in front of a crowds who lined the quay, but then the pagers went off and the lifeboats were called out for real to a 17ft Shakespeare speedboat that was sinking off Hook Sands near the entrance of the harbour.
The ILB was first on scene and found that the 3 men crew had taken refuge in a passing boat, when the ALB arrived all that could bee seen of the speedboat was the bow sticking out of the water.
The ALB pumped the boat out and successfully refloated the stricken vessel it seemed that it had been severely swamped.

The ILB then took the vessel and its crew back to Baiter slipway.

Both boats returned to the station where the visitors, were waiting to have closer look at the boats and there was pirates waiting to dunk the crew! There was a flare demonstration at 3pm and lots of fun and games.

Coxswain Jonathan Clark said “We have had a great day, the weather was kind and we were very pleased with the turn out, it’s good to have the support and the chance to show people what we do.”

And a big thankyou to Hayley Smithers from New Malden Surrey who took the time to send in some of her own photos from the day.