| The night of Thursday 20 August went off with a
real bang for the crews of Poole Lifeboat Station.
The annual Bournemouth air festival, held over 4 days over the
sea off Bournemouth beach, always proves a challenge for Dorset
RNLI lifeguards and lifeboat crews, as hundreds of thousands of
visitors saturate the beaches and waterways. For 2009, the Thursday
night proved even more spectacular as an attempt was made to break
the world record for the most fireworks set off simultaneously from
a huge barge moored half a mile offshore.
Shortly after 9:30pm, 112,000 rockets were fired in one go from
the barge, sending a cloud of spark, flame and debris over 100m
into the night sky, dwarfing the barge and the towing tug, before
promptly catching fire.
The Poole Tyne class and Atlantic 85 lifeboats, both on station
just over 300m from the barge, were caught in the shockwave of the
huge explosion, which towered high above them, illuminating the
seas and over a hundred other boats in the vicinity for miles around.
'We were the close to the barge, and the explosion was just incredible.
We felt the full shockwave roll over the boat, a huge blinding flash,
and then a pall of smoke, debris and burning flares hung in the
air for a while afterwards. I've never seen grown, seasoned lifeboat
crew move as fast in all my life – it scared the living daylights
out of us, and led to some amusing, if not slightly shaky expletives,'
said Crew Member Rob Inett.
Ducking behind the aft cabin of the Tyne class lifeboat, Rob managed
to take a series of memorable pictures that clearly show the scale
of the explosion. 'Afterwards, I think we all agreed that being
fairly close to the barge wasn't necessarily the best thing but
it's certainly something we will remember for a long time!’
The fires on the barge were quickly put out by a fire crew on the
towing tug, as both Poole lifeboats were immediately tasked to assist
two broken down vessels that had been attending the sightseeing.
Both casualty vessels were towed back into Poole harbour, and the
crews finally got back to station a little after midnight.
Picture credits: Rob Inett, RNLI Poole lifeboat
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