The volunteer crew from the RNLI’s Barrow station launched their all-weather lifeboat this evening, Sunday 3rd February 2019, to assist in searching an area of the east Irish Sea after a signal was picked from an emergency beacon.
The call for assistance came from HM Coastguard at Holyhead at 6:05pm. The Coastguard stated that reports had been received of an “EPIRB” (Emergency Radio-positioning Beacon) signal being picked up at a location approximately 14 miles south-west of Barrow.
The crew was paged and the Tamar Class all-weather lifeboat, ‘Grace Dixon’, was launched at 6:20pm under the command of Coxswain, Shaun Charnley assisted by six crew.
The lifeboat proceeded to the location where the signal was reported to be coming from which was just within the site of the West of Duddon Sands Offshore Windfarm.
The Barrow lifeboat was joined in the search by the Fleetwood lifeboat, the Shannon Class ‘Kenneth James Pierpoint’. Both lifeboats reached the scene at 7:20pm and commenced a co-ordinated search of the area. However, nothing was found and the crews were stood down by the Coastguard at 7:55pm.
The lifeboats returned to their respective lifeboat stations with the Barrow boat arriving back at 8:30pm. The boat was then washed down and made ready for the next launch.
The wind at the time of the incident was south south-westerly, Force 4, with the next high tide due at 11:06pm.
