A dark, horrible, heroic night Salcombe lifeboat volunteers battle the elements to rescue two sailors trapped in horrendous conditions 3.55am on 21 December 2020. Two sailors were in a desperate situation off the coast of Devon. The 7.5m yacht they were on had run aground. With gale-force winds at 34–40 knots, severe squalls and driving rain, the men were in real danger. In nearby Salcombe, full-time Coxswain/Mechanic Chris Winzar was in bed when his pager went off. ‘It was a very dark, windy night with horizontal rain. Normally, when it's blowing like that and the pager goes off, you think you’re going mid-channel for something commercial in trouble. When the DLA [deputy launching authority] told me it was a yacht aground I thought he was joking. There’s no way there’s a yacht out there in this weather.’ ‘It was a horrible night,’ says Deputy Second Coxswain Richard ‘Tricky’ Clayton. ‘My house is at the top of a hill in Salcombe and it was horrendous just getting in the car and down to the station.’ They joined other volunteers at the lifeboat station. ‘It’s always a shock when you’re woken up in the middle of the night,’ says Crew Member Iain Dundas. ‘You end up with clothes on backwards, everyone at the station 10 Lifeboat summer 2022
with a variety of different types of clothing on. It can be a strange sight.’ Kitted up in RNLI gear and ready to go, the Salcombe crew launched their all-weather Tamar class lifeboat The Baltic Exchange III. ‘It’s always a bit of trepidation launching when it’s rough weather and it’s dark,’ says Iain. ‘When you can’t see the waves coming, it’s always a bit more nerve-wracking.’
‘ We were 35–40 metres off the rocks and you couldn’t see the coastline, it was that bad’ CHRIS WINZAR
COXSWAIN | SALCOMBE
They reached the reported location of the casualty. Coastguard teams and a helicopter were already on scene searching, but had been unable to find them. Visibility was poor. ‘We were 35–40 metres off the rocks and you couldn’t see the coastline, it was that bad,’ says Chris. A tough call to make ‘We had the floodlights out, but in that sort of weather with the horizontal rain, it just refracts off the water. I don’t
know whether the casualties found their VHF or put out a mayday, but that put us right on a line to them. So we knew they were there on the rocks, but we still couldn’t see them. And it was too windy and dangerous for the helicopter to come in closer.’ The shallow water meant that approaching the casualty’s position on the all-weather lifeboat would be impossible. There was only one solution remaining – the small inflatable dinghy that's carried aboard. ‘In that situation, you wouldn’t normally launch the Y boat,’ explaina Chris. ‘But it was the only way of saving those lives. It was a tall order for the two going into the Y boat. I asked for volunteers, and Tricky and Iain stepped up straight away.’ ‘I’m quite comfortable in that boat, quite confident in it,’ says Tricky. ‘I felt I could do it or at least have a closer look.’ ‘By this time you could hear the casualties crying out for help over the VHF. It was a risky decision, and the coxswain put it out to us if we wanted to do it,’ says Iain. ‘Being two of the more experienced crew, we were probably best suited for the boat.’ Into the squall The lifeboat crew launched the Y boat into the water, with Tricky at
