Eastbourne lifeboat Coxswain Mark Sawyer and his new wife Trina hosted a party on Saturday night for all the volunteer crew, friends and family to celebrate their recent wedding. Almost inevitable the event was twice interrupted when the crew were paged to assist boats in trouble.
The first call for help was received at 6pm (Sat 16 July) when a rope got entwined around the propeller of a 10 metre yacht on passage to Eastbourne five miles from the harbour entrance. The all-weather lifeboat (ALB) was launched and towed the vessel to the marina locks. Less than three hours later the volunteer crew were again paged when a 30ft motor cruiser suffered engine failure in Pevensey Bay. The ALB was re-launched and took the cruiser under tow to Sovereign Harbour.
Both lifeboats launched on Sunday morning for routine crew training without further incident. Later on Sunday afternoon the inshore lifeboat (ILB) was launched to assist a small angling boat with engine failure. The vessel was returned to the Angling Club beach from where it had set out earlier. The volunteer ILB crew were paged again during the early evening to recover the body of a male person from the foot of the cliffs at Beachy Head. All of the crew will be at their places of work on Monday morning as usual after another busy weekend.