Shortly before 1pm on Friday last (10 June) Dublin Coast Guard received a 999 call from a member of the public reporting an inflatable being blown out to sea from Bettystown beach with two children on board.
RNLI volunteers in Clogherhead and Skerries were paged and both headed towards Bettystown.
Skerries RNLI located the casualty vessel, which turned out to be a yellow kayak. There was nobody on board but there were a number of personal belongings, this coupled with the initial report gave rise to the concern that there may be persons in the water.
As the Skerries crew were making their way towards the location they encountered a number of heavy squalls. As there was a potentially large search area if the casualties lost contact with their vessel and with visibility badly affected at intermittent times, Skerries RNLI requested that Dublin Coast Guard task Clogherhead RNLI to assist in the search.
Dublin Coast Guard issued a Mayday before tasking Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter R116 and Drogheda Coast Guard land unit. The lifeboat from Skerries immediately began a search pattern in the area, at the same time Clogherhead RNLI commenced a parallel search of the shore from the mouth of the Boyne heading south.
Shortly after the search patterns had begun, R116 requested Clogherhead RNLI to divert from their course to investigate an object in the water near Gormanstown beach, however, as they were making their way to the co-ordinates given, Dublin Coast Guard reported that the owners of the kayak had made contact and confirmed that they were ashore in Bettystown and were safe and well.
The Mayday was cancelled, and all units were stood down and returned to their respective bases.
Conditions at the time were force four to five westerly wind with slight swells and good visibility. There were occasional strong squalls with winds increasing to force six and visibility reduced to poor.
Volunteer Lifeboat Press Officer Gerry Canning said: ‘There were two black back supports in the kayak so it’s very easy to see how the person who dialled 999 and asked for the Coast Guard genuinely believed that someone was in difficulty. Thankfully in this case it was a false alarm, but they did exactly what we want people to do when they see someone in trouble.’
