A LIFEBOAT volunteer has claimed the heatwave triggered one of the busiest weekends in memory as a town’s crew was called out to five incidents in two days.

Lifeboat volunteers from Harwich RNLI spent more than ten hours on the water over the weekend responding to a variety of incidents.

Its weekend began when the crew assisted a nine metre yacht into Shotley Marina but more action was quick to follow.

Two people on board an eight metre stricken power boat then required assistance a mile south of Stone Pier, Harwich, which was owed to Shotley.

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The third incident saw another yacht with four people on board needing help after it had become tangled in fishing lines, one mile off Felixstowe.

It became apparent the only way to free the yacht was to sweep the line underneath the yacht and cut it.

As the line was still tightly wrapped around the propeller and rudder, the safest option was to tow the yacht to Shotley Marina to undertake the work.

Gazette: Picture: Leam DonnPicture: Leam Donn

Again, the crew’s pagers sounded shortly before 9pm on Sunday after multiple 999 calls had been made stating two people had been spotted waving paddles for attention out at sea off Felixstowe Ferry.

The crew on the inshore lifeboat crew discovered two paddle boarders, who had fallen into difficulty during strong tidal flows.

And early on Monday morning, the crew was made aware of a boat engulfed in smoke, and possibly on fire, one mile offshore between Felixstowe Pier and the entrance to the River Deben, however it turned out to be a false alarm.

Antony Charles, a trainee helm who attended most of the weekend’s launches said: “This has been one of the busiest weekends I can remember for a long time but has been a great experience in my development towards becoming a helm.

“I had thought my recent training course at the RNLI college had been intense, but nothing beats real world experience.”