#RNLI - The volunteer lifeboat crew with Larne RNLI had a busy Sunday evening (19 April) when both the all-weather and inshore lifeboats were tasked to two separate incidents within minutes of each other.
The inshore lifeboat was launched to aid a 20-foot rowing boat with two people onboard, which was having difficulty making it to land in Ballygally Bay when it was hit by strong tides.
Meanwhile, the all-weather lifeboat was sent to search Brown’s Bay after reports were received of two canoes washed ashore with nobody on them.
The inshore lifeboat crew were quickly stood down when the two people on the rowing boat managed to make it to shore safely. The crew then immediately proceeded to Brown’s Bay where they joined their all-weather lifeboat crew colleagues in the search for the suspected two missing canoeists.
Both lifeboat crews were stood down around 45 minutes later following a call to Belfast Coastguard by a woman who said the two boys who had been on the canoes had capsized and managed to make it to shore. They were unable to recover their canoes and so the crafts were left on scene. The boys had made it home safely.
Commenting on the callouts, Larne RNLI crew member Pamela Dorman said: "Thankfully both these callouts had a successful outcome but with conditions being choppy with a Force 4m you can never take a chance.
"These types of callouts are always taken seriously by us and treated as missing persons until further information can be obtained. We would like to thank the woman who phoned the coastguard as we were able to recover the craft so that other alerts would not be issued.
"We would always advise people who see something at sea that worries them, to raise the alarm. You never know when a life could depend on it."
