Episode 4 Saving Lives at Sea

We're an island nation, drawn to the sea that surrounds us.

For many, it's a playground.

For others, it's where we earn our living.

But the sea is unpredictable.

Brace!

It can change in an instant,

and when accidents happen, they happen very fast.

You're in cold water, you're not going to last long.

SIREN WAILS There to save our lives

is a volunteer army of 5,000 ordinary people...

ready to leave their jobs, their families,

and race to our rescue.

One minute you're just an ordinary person,

the next minute you're a lifeboat crew member.

They're the last line of defence against the deadly water.

Wouldn't even like to think what would happen

if there was no-one there.

I was waiting for death,

but a guardian angel came.

To save someone's life is a privilege.

You feel like you're doing the most important thing on Earth.

Thank you.

Over 200 years, the volunteers of the RNLI

have saved the lives of more than 140,000 people.

Brave lifeboatmen don't cry. Rubbish. I do.

Treating every call-out as a matter of life and death.

That's what we all turn up for - to save people's lives.

This programme contains some strong language.

It's the first days of summer

and Britain's beaches are starting to come to life.

For the RNLI volunteers

who cover all 11,000 miles of Britain's coastline,

it's their busiest time of the year.

There's no wonder so many people buy a boat

and go to sea for the weekend.

There's huge enjoyment to be had out there.

There are people who are able to go to sea now

that a generation ago wouldn't perhaps

have had the means to do it.

In my lifetime, it's hugely increased.

But of course, the more people that get in the sea,

the more chance there is of something going wrong.

SIREN BLARES

It's 8:30pm and the summer weather has taken a turn for the worse.

A call for help is coming in.

The crew aim to launch within ten minutes

Tonight, station manager Gareth sees his men off in eight.

Two casualties in a small boat are caught in the storm.

Well, things escalate quickly at sea.

The slightest small thing goes wrong,

all of a sudden it becomes a big thing and, you know,

you need rescuing before you know it.

With time of the essence,

the lifeboat crew need the precise location of the stricken boat.

-ON RADIO:

-'50 degrees.

'22.577 minutes north. 10.62 minutes west.'

So, about three miles southwest of the coffee stain.

Heading for the safety of Newquay Harbour,

the sailors have taken a wrong turn,

ending up in Perran Bay - an area renowned for shipwrecks.

Get alongside first. You've got plenty of time.

Now in the eye of the storm,

their boat is in danger of being dashed against the rocks.

'The boat that they were going to look after'

was in a dodgy place.

That meant that the lifeboat that was going to pick them up

had to get into a dodgy place.

It takes on a whole different perspective at night.

For obvious reasons, you can see where you're going

and you can't see what's coming to hit you.

A smaller lifeboat from a neighbouring station

has already located the sailors

but doesn't have the engine power to pull them to safety

against the mounting wind and waves.

The two men on board have sailed this open-top antique wooden boat

all the way from northern France.

It was quite a surprise to see

this very old looking

wooden vessel, shrunk-down pirate galleon.

Yeah. It was pretty interesting.

'The boat was rolling around a lot.'

I'm going to come on board with you. I'm going to take the tow.

To secure the towline, Tim must now jump from boat to boat.

You risk being washed off the boat,

and the boat weighing six or seven tonnes

sort of swinging around, no telling how that might end up.

I'm Tim.

No.

You've got no chance.

Though they have managed to make it all the way from Brittany,

this is the two men's first-ever proper sea voyage.

I'm not a sailor. I don't know how to sail. I just...

I just tried.

-Ask them to ease off!

-OK.

Maybe I'm a little bit naive, because I was not raised by the sea.

It's a very strong experience because you see the waves

and it's splashing in your face and you are, like, shaking.

Keep letting slack out.

A trip like this, you start to realise

what are important things in your life.

-Yeah.

-Ah.

Oh! Oh!

'The majority of people that come to the coast recreationally'

have no first-hand experience of the sea until they decide

to buy a boat, go afloat, enjoy themselves,

and why shouldn't they?

'But a lot of them don't have the basic skills and knowledge

'of the environment that they're in to be completely safe.'

Back in Newquay Harbour with their boat barely still afloat,

the rescued adventurers are returned to dry land.

Hi, guys. Come in. Just in time. John just got the kettle on.

So, you survived. Yeah, quite a story.

There was a bit of foolishness in it, but, you know,

you've got to support the spirit of adventure.

'If they hadn't shown up, what do you think would've happened?'

To sink.

When you're rescued,

it's a shame because I could not do it myself,

and it's happiness that you are saved.

This was a relief.

-Thank you.

-You're welcome.

In Newquay, volunteers have

been running a lifeboat station since 1860.

Back then, it was a thriving fishing village.

The fishing fleet is much reduced today,

but Gareth, a third-generation fishmonger,

is there to sell their wares.

My ancestors were moulded by the sea.

Because their lives revolved around it.

We have a really strong maritime tradition.

I was taught it when I was at school

that the new generation don't seem to be.

But the sea is still a lure for some.

Having recovered from their ordeal,

the two novice sailors have patched up the leaks in their boat

and are preparing to set sail once more.

That's it.

Hi there. OK?

Gareth is at the harbour to wish them luck.

How are repairs going?

OK.

We're driving this boat from North Brittany to Scotland,

and there the boat will be dismantled to use the wood

of the hull to make whisky barrels.

Oh, right. OK. Yeah.

Then fill them with whisky, of course.

The ship's hull has been stripped back to bare wood,

so when it's turned into barrels

the whisky will take on the flavour of the sea.

We really wanted to make a relationship

between the handcraft of making boats

and the handcraft of making barrels.

There is a connection between the sailors and the whisky.

Like this, it's soaked with the sea, the wind and the adventure.

'Do you approve?'

I'm not a whisky drinker.

In her day, she was a lovely-looking boat.

She had nice lines on her, but I think she's had her day.

-You have the right charts?

-Yeah.

-Yeah, yeah. Of course.

The artists are heading for the distant Hebridean island of Islay,

nearly 500 miles away.

Bon voyage. Mark, bon voyage.

Thank you, Gareth. Have a beautiful time, and thank you for saving us.

Ah, you're welcome. No problem.

Max and Mark face a 10-day voyage through big seas and wild weather

where even the most experienced sailors have come unstuck.

We don't judge people.

We may offer them some safety advice, which, you know,

is very often quite relevant, but we don't judge people, as such.

Good luck to them.

I think they tried to go at about six,

but they didn't actually get away until about seven.

Has ever RNLI station been notified that they're on their way?

LAUGHTER

As temperatures rise,

it's not just Britain's coastal waters that draw the crowds.

Whenever you look at a map of England

and especially of London, the first thing you see is the River Thames.

It's quite a tourist attraction in its own right.

A lot of people think the river is just a lovely gentle place

to go in there and cool off.

Unfortunately, you don't see the dangers

that's lurking just underneath.

As the busiest lifeboat station in Britain,

the 54-strong crew at Tower respond to over 500 emergencies every year.

Helmsman Stan has carried out over 2,000 rescues

during his 35-year service with the RNLI.

The Thames where we operate is just over 150 meters wide,

and it's quite vicious.

You have to remember, the Thames isn't as wide as it used to be.

It's been taken up a lot by the land.

Still got the same volume of water coming down

but in a narrower space.

And the mixture between the freshwater and saltwater

in the Thames gives us a lot of different currents.

Many of us are oblivious to the dangers, though,

and on a hot summer's day,

the water can look deceptively tempting.

Hey, go! Go! Go!

Oi-oi!

If you think, "Oh, I can swim,"

then you think, "Thames is just a bit of water.

"I can jump in. I could swim over to there."

But you can get caught out.

It's very easy to underestimate what the river is capable of,

particularly if you're being egged on by mates

or there's some sort of bravado thing going on.

-Woohoo!

-SHE SCREAMS

I would never swim in it, and I'm a strong swimmer.

And, so, people who find themselves in the Thames realise very quickly

it looks innocent and in fact it's really not.

Yo, yo, yo. What is up, Shinwaris?

Faisal Shinwari runs a popular YouTube channel.

..I'm scared of heights,

today I'm going to be jumping off London Tower Bridge.

Let's go.

He posts videos of himself carrying out stunts and dares.

Yeah, ten-second rule. Just go on. Do it.

Come on. For the Shinwaris. Come on.

Most people aren't aware that the first thing that you'll do

is an involuntary gasp of air when you're underwater,

and you might not come up again.

Yo, Faisal!

So many people don't appreciate the strength of the tide

and the coldness of the water

and the shock going in and what that does to you physically.

Within a few minutes,

your muscles have started to ache and you can't swim.

Are you OK?

The river can flow really fast, up to five, six knots,

and no-one can swim against that - not even Olympic swimmers.

If you can't swim to the shore

and you can't swim to keep your head above water,

you're going to drown, aren't you?

Help!

Oh, shit. I think someone needs to go down there.

-Help!

-PHONE RINGS

We have to be away from station when our bells go within 90 seconds

cos we don't want the core temperature to start dropping.

A minute and a half is the matter of life or death.

SIREN BLARES

Once they see the boats, that's when it's the most dangerous.

The body relaxes slightly because you know you are now safe.

They'll put their hands up and then they slip underwater.

-'Have you had anyone disappear?'

-Several times, yes.

By the time Faisal is pulled from the river,

he's struggling to breathe.

I think he breathed in a lot of water,

-and he took a bad fall as well.

-Did he? Wow.

He was very scared and he was vomiting continuously.

Was starting to go into hypothermia.

We got blankets around him, was giving him sips of water

to try and flush the sick, and got him warm.

I thought I'd be all right.

I thought I'd just swim to the side,

hopefully, like,

run away from police and just get home and upload the video,

but that's not how it went.

Faisal was very lucky.

For their own good,

sometimes we do have to be a bit cross with them.

They were... They were angry.

"Why did you do it?" Stuff like that.

And I was like, "It was a dare."

I didn't think it was going to be such a big deal.

I thought, "It's going to be fun."

Not fun, but, like, I thought it would be a good YouTube video.

He now realises just how idiotic it was to do that

and how close he came to losing his life that day.

Home to some of Britain's most beautiful beaches,

West Wales is one of the UK's most popular summer holiday destinations.

There's been a station at Cardigan Bay for over 150 years,

but to keep it going, it needs new recruits.

Local lad Tom has recently signed up to volunteer.

I didn't really know much about the sea.

I was born near the coast, but the family is not very...

They didn't really like the beach much.

When he first came through the door, like I say, a 17-year-old,

and you think, "He's a tiny fella,"

and looked a bit green. Yeah, definitely.

You think to yourself, some people are not made of it.

Some people do come and go and don't like it.

Already confused.

This rabbit is at the hole,

goes round the tree, back in the hole.

SIREN BLARES Late afternoon, the alarm goes off.

A nine-year-old girl on a school trip to the beach

has become trapped in some rocks while playing hide and seek.

She's stuck below the high water mark

and the tide is rising fast.

The tide waits for no-one, and we knew the tide was coming in.

After months of training, this is Tom's first-ever real emergency.

The nerves are coming out around that time.

You're like, "Oh, I better do everything right.

"I don't want to do anything wrong."

Milford LB, we've located casualty. Over.

MAN SPEAKS INAUDIBLY OVER RADIO

The police, coastguard and fire brigade

are already on scene

but have all been unable to free the little girl.

Hi. How are you doing?

Are you all right? OK.

Yeah, OK. It's not a problem.

It's not a problem. So, can you not move your leg at all, no?

-No.

-No?

How about in the welly? Is there any room in the welly?

Only your toes, is it?

'I never thought she'd be in a hole four foot down.'

Bit of a shock and panic, but you try not to show it.

You try and keep it at the back of your head,

especially to keep the girl calm.

Yeah.

Get the first aid kit and get the scissors out of the first aid kit.

-Go back and get the scissors.

-OK.

If you can cut down your welly, OK,

you have to cut down the front of your welly and maybe

down the back of your welly, OK,

hopefully then your foot will be able to come out of the welly, yeah?

OK?

'The tide coming in,'

it will kill you.

'The stake is her life. The stake is Eira's life.'

To make matters worse, today is the spring tide,

when the sea levels rise even faster and higher than normal.

OK, these are scissors.

If she dropped the scissors, it would've been game over.

'You have got to think on your feet.'

Uh...

Put this on your wrist first, OK?

And then can you reach your welly with your other hand?

You might have to change hands. Might be easier to change hands.

It will cut. Just take your time.

Just do two or three snips with it. It will cut through.

No?

Is it your leg in the welly are your leg itself?

The leg itself, is it?

'There was a bit of a panic then'

cos we had done what we thought we could do and she was still stuck.

Can you move backwards at all?

OK, push it forwards.

'Fire brigade officer turned around and said

'if he could get in the hole, he would.'

It was a typical firemen, six foot plus tall.

No?

'It does pull on the heartstrings, especially a young girl.'

Tom, will you fit down there, mate?

Yeah, take all the stuff off. Take your life jacket off. OK.

'I'm not too comfortable in holes, but when I saw the little face,

'I was like, "Oh, we have to do something."'

I didn't really have a second thought about it.

It was just a case of, "I need to try this."

OK, go down here, mate.

Just slide down there, yeah.

'You could hear the sea coming in hitting rocks

'and you could feel the splashes coming over.

'I was like, "Oh, no. This is serious now."'

The rising sea has reached the girl's legs.

Can you see, Tom?

Ow!

'Her leg had swollen up quite a bit'

and there's no movement,

so she had just completely stuck her leg.

Yeah, yeah.

OK, Tom...

'I was panicking.'

'I felt like this is her life in my hands

'and I have to do something.'

That's it. Go on.

-Well done. Go on again.

-Well done.

-And again.

-One more go, yeah?

Good!

Leave the welly. Leave the welly.

-Take all these.

-Are you OK?

-Stay there a sec.

'As soon as she was free,'

then I put my body underneath her so she didn't fall,

and I just had the biggest smile on my face ever then.

All right. OK, slowly come up.

Don't pull, just slowly...

-Good girl.

-Brilliant.

-OK?

-OK?

-OK, just go straight up and sit on the box right behind you.

Go on. Have a sit down there first. Well done.

-Well done!

-Reach for the welly. Get the welly up.

'It was a really big feeling of relief.'

I didn't really know what to say

cos they'd saved my life, and I just wasn't sure what to do.

Move your foot as well. Move your foot.

I'm just really grateful they got me out.

'She was calm throughout.'

I've rescued adults before for less serious situations

who panicked a lot more than that.

'We went to play hide and seek on the rocks'

and I thought I would hide down a hole.

And as I was putting my foot on the rock,

it slipped on a bit of moss or something and got stuck.

Well done.

Well done, Tom, mate. Well done.

Thank you, everybody.

-Well done, buddy.

-Cheers.

-Well done.

Well done, mate.

First shout.

'He definitely stepped up to the plate

'like he'd been a crewman for years.'

Got straight in there and helped save a life on his first shout.

Well done, mate. That's good. Well done.

'I was so proud of myself.'

I can't describe how it feels. It's so amazing.

'It was a big confidence boost.

'I'm never really a confident guy. I'm quite shy, stick to myself.'

It's a big thing for me. Best thing that's happened in my life, I think.

It's August, and on the South Coast,

temperatures at Britain's busiest beach

have reached 30 degrees.

Whenever the sun shines,

the volunteers at Brighton Lifeboat Station

know to be on high alert.

Brighton has always had a reputation of being a party town.

People want to have a good time, get sunburned, go for a swim.

-A lot of partying.

-Hello, people!

It's absolutely crammed.

There's a lot of drinking and a lot of people

who aren't used to being near a massive body of water.

People have been flocking here to have fun by the sea

since George IV made it his favourite holiday spot in 1783.

There's been an RNLI lifeboat station for nearly 200 years,

and over that time thousands of volunteers

have served on the crew.

PHONE RINGS

22-year-old Jade joined five years ago.

If someone says a lifeboat man,

I still have the whole image of great big beards,

old guy, likes fishing.

They definitely don't think of me, I can guarantee you that.

SIREN BLARES

But Jade has had close links to the RNLI all her life.

Her father Roger volunteers as the station manager.

When she was about two weeks old,

I came down with this baby in my arms and,

"There you are, Jade. This is a lifeboat station."

She's had some hard knocks in life, but she's come through good

and I'm a proud dad.

Jade made the decision to join up after her mum passed away.

My mum was like me - a bubbly, chatty person.

Loved life, lived it to the full.

OK, numbers, please.

'It was all a big shock,

'but the crew down at the lifeboat station helped me get through it.'

'There's not a day that goes past I don't miss my mum.

'Everything I do is'

to make her proud, and also to make Dad proud.

Today's call has come from some holiday-makers

who have raised the alarm, concerned about a friend

who went for a swim and has not returned.

Southern coastguard, Brighton Lifeboat.

For your information, we are now on scene

and starting a shoreline search from Brighton Palace Pier

to Brighton West Pier. Over.

He's a male. He's 33 years old.

Guys, he's got a shaven head. He's wearing white boxer shorts.

'In the height of summer,

'Brighton Beach is absolutely packed.

'It's like trying to find'

a needle in a haystack.

You've got a bald person at 9 o'clock.

Yeah, dead on 9 o'clock.

Bald person.

Am I not...? Can you see him or am I just being blind?

He's bald.

I don't reckon it's him. Sorry.

'That day, there were quite a lot of bald men'

with white swimming trunks, I'm not going to lie.

Brighton Lifeboat, that's all received.

Do you have a time of when the casualty was last seen? Over.

He was last seen at 12.30, which was a good three hours ago.

If we get a report that

someone's been missing for three hours,

my initial reaction is, "Why weren't we alerted earlier?"

Whenever you're going to a person in the water,

a thing that always crosses my mind is "Do they have children?"

'Cos I know what it feels like to lose your parent.'

If he is a bit drunk, he might have got off on the beach somewhere else.

Yeah.

'Did he make it back to the beach safely

'and they just haven't been able to find him?'

Or is he somewhere in the water, and if so, what are his chances?

Cos he's had alcohol in his system,

he's been missing for the last three hours.

We exhausted that whole search area.

We had the helicopter up.

We had the coastguard units on the beach.

The worst-case scenario is that we'll be pulling him out as a body.

Southern coastguard, Brighton Lifeboat. Go ahead. Over.

Stand down, stand down.

After an hour and a half,

the decision is taken to call the search off.

That is a very frustrating feeling.

You know, you really want to find that person.

That is a hard decision, to say,

"Look, we don't think we can search that place any more."

Coastguard is still obviously keeping an eye out.

It's a bit like,

"Is he alive? Is he dead? What's going on?"

Cos you want to know.

You do think about it.

I mean, we go back home and you try to get sleep.

That situation is going through your mind,

but then the world carries on.

We had a man missing, so they had us,

the coastguard, on the beach, and then the helicopter out.

If you have a shout like that and you don't find them...

-Yeah.

-..do you not, like, constantly think about it when you get home?

Yeah, I have so much respect for her.

It's really incredible what she does.

It's a really tough job to kind of leave a station and just go home.

I think every shout I've ever been on stays with me.

I don't forget anything.

One shout that every RNLI volunteer can remember clearly

is their first encounter with death.

For Brighton crew member Roland, it came earlier in the summer.

I'm not in the army, I'm not a doctor.

I'm a primary school teacher,

so I'd never seen a dead body before.

SIREN BLARES

We were told there was a man face down under the pier,

and when you hear that, you know it's the real deal.

You've got to get there fast.

Can I confirm if someone has a visual on this person? Over.

The sea was too rough to get the boat close.

I didn't really have time to think about it.

I just got in the water.

I'd been picked up by a wave and I was just smashed around,

churned around like being in a washing machine.

Must've bumped into the guy a few times under water.

From the moment, you know, you looked in his eyes,

you could see that there was just nothing there.

Nothing prepares you for being there at the end of someone's life.

What would've happened if we had a got there a few minutes earlier?

What would've happened if I'd swum faster?

If I'd got hold of him the first time instead of the third time?

But it's all bollocks, really,

because there was nothing that I could do.

Every 19-year-old man with a few beers in them

is invincible in their own mind.

One minute he was in Brighton having a brilliant night out

and then the next minute he was dead.

In just one summer, two people have lost their lives here.

In London, it's the summer bank holiday

and the volunteers at Tower Lifeboat Station

are expecting an influx of partygoers.

On the Thames, there are quite a lot of boats

that will go out for an evening cruise

and they've got bars on them, discos, sometimes singers.

DANCE MUSIC PLAYS IN DISTANCE

You know, the more they've drunk, the louder they get.

Exactly the same as your typical sort of high street

on a Friday or Saturday night, really, basically, yeah.

Just happens to be on a floating waterway.

There are some boats that have more of a reputation

for heavy drinking parties, shall we say.

As a group, I suppose,

they're one of our regular customers.

-At 8pm...

-OK.

..a call comes in.

If there's a casualty on a party boat

in the middle of the river,

then obviously the lifeboat can get medical care to the person

far more quickly than an ambulance crew.

And when we're going to a party boat,

you know that usually drink or drugs is involved in some way.

Can you mark the double line? Two lines.

With a medical emergency on board,

the party boat has moored up at a nearby pier to await assistance.

Sometimes it can be difficult for us two or three crew

that are getting on with, you know, dry suits on,

helmet and life jackets,

and that draws a little bit of attention.

Some people think that they're strippers or whatever,

or fancy dress.

We're concerned if he's unconscious or might not be breathing.

I was trying to rouse him.

'And then he suddenly'

woke up and said, "Yeah, hello."

What's your name? Stay there, stay there.

He had sort of white flecks around his nose,

which would tie in with taking some sort of illegal substance.

I've only heard of ketamine in the context of veterinary practice,

and I think it's a horse tranquilizer.

'That would explain his predicament.'

Outside, an ambulance has arrived at the pier

to take the casualty to hospital.

'Do you ever feel like your time has been wasted?'

No. No. I don't think I've ever felt our time has been wasted.

Even if the casualty we're actually dealing with runs off in the end,

we've made sure

that he hasn't died on the boat.

No!

Did he?

BELLS CHIME

Tower is the station that never sleeps.

The volunteers here take it in turns to work two 12-hour shifts

to provide cover around the clock.

And living, sleeping and eating alongside one another

can lead to some unexpected friendships.

You may be from a completely different walk of life,

you may have a completely different opinion from each other,

but when you're faced with adversity,

then all of that is put to one side.

We're all there for one reason.

Craig is an ex cop,

whilst Robin is a lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts.

His day-to-day job, I don't really have much of a clue about that,

but we're all brought together by the RNLI and lifeboats.

It's like the relationship that you have with your family.

Yeah, I like Robin. He's a good boy.

Needs a shave, though.

PHONE RINGS

At half past midnight, a call comes in.

A member of the public has seen a woman throw herself

into the river.

When you have a shift on the station,

you're fully aware of the fact that there's a possibility

that you might have to deal with something

that is really quite difficult and sometimes upsetting.

Every year on the Thames, there are more than 300 call-outs

to people threatening or attempting to harm themselves.

It's a dark piece of water,

and searching for people at night has that

very, very real element

of the fact that you might miss them.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

Shouts from the water draw their attention to the river's edge.

Drop the lamp.

You can hear this girl shouting and screaming,

but it's very difficult to spot her.

You can hear the noise.

She's underneath.

The woman is clinging to a pillar

where the water flows at over 5mph.

'You need to act fast.

'You know, I've seen people drown'

in front of me that had been there,

'and they've gone under and you don't find them.'

Need to get her a line!

There's only so long you can hold on in cold water.

Then your muscles get tired and weak.

'He got that line to her straightaway.'

You got it?

Have you got the line?

-OK.

-OK.

She wanted to be saved, clearly,

because when we threw her the line she grabbed hold of it immediately.

People who don't want to be saved

actually need more kind of prompting.

Right, if you let go of the pillar

and gently pull yourself towards me on the rope.

OK?

Gently does it. Easy, easy, easy.

We're just going to pull you down the side of the boat

where we can get to you.

SHE SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY

-Come on.

-Come on.

-Come on.

It's all right. We've got you.

'She had been in the water for a long time. It was freezing cold.'

And immediately, actually, when we got her onto our boat,

'she appeared to pass out.'

It's OK, it's OK.

'When somebody has jumped into the river,

'there's been a tendency to say that they're crazy,'

'when in fact,'

actually, mental health, I think, is something that affects

the majority of us, in a way.

Police and paramedics are waiting at a nearby jetty

to take the woman to hospital

where she can be assessed by a psychiatrist.

Cheers. See you later.

'You never know what their futures are going to hold.

'They may do exactly the same thing in a month's time.

'But then and there,'

we're here to support you.

We're not here to do anything other than support you.

-Oh.

-Could do with a cigarette.

-Absolutely.

We do get lots of people that have done that,

and we've pulled them out.

It's changed their life

and actually they didn't really want to do that.

In Brighton, the summer season is slow to finish,

and a hot afternoon has brought a rush of people back to the coast.

Marcus is one of 16 lifeboat crew in Brighton,

living his life with one eye on the sea.

Before marriage and children,

he used to sell yachts around the world.

The sea, for me, is my kind of yoga, I suppose.

Without the sea, I'd probably go insane.

I just love it.

But it's not easy to balance that with family life.

When he's on call, Marcus can never

be further than five minutes from the lifeboat station.

You can't just go out for dinner or go for a beer

and relax properly because, you know, you are on call.

'What does your wife say?'

HE LAUGHS Ask her.

Sometimes it's a bit annoying.

Bath-time, you know, when the boys is just in the crazy time

of being really tired, just about to go to bed, and the alarm is like...

-SHE IMITATES ALARM

-It's like, "No!"

My wife probably worries a little bit,

depending on sea conditions

and depending on the emergency that we have.

I do get scared, yes.

I do. But I feel quite proud of what he does.

If you see what they do, really, you need to forget about it

and just let them go, and actually, Marcus loves it, so I don't mind.

ALARM RINGS

It's mid-afternoon, and as high tide approaches,

Brighton Lifeboat Station receives a call for help.

A female tourist out for a walk has called 999

after becoming cut off and trapped by the rising tide.

The only problem, she doesn't know where she is.

Information from first informants varies.

They might be distressed or not be thinking clearly.

You know, obviously, they're calling 999

hoping that someone's going to come and save them.

With almost four miles of coastline to search,

the crew must get to the woman before the sea does.

There should be a lifeguard along the Saltdean beach as well,

but this bit is not patrolled.

The UK and Ireland have some of the biggest tidal ranges in the world.

The combination of steep cliffs and shallowly sloping seabed

means the tide around our coast can come in unexpectedly fast.

Tides and seas can move very quickly.

Apparently, a horse can't outrun the tide.

Trapped between the sea and vertical cliffs over 30 meters high,

there is no escape.

I didn't see anything that way,

so it might be worth having a quick look at the Saltdean

and then perhaps working our way back.

'The Saltdean cliffs historically was where'

smugglers used to put in their boats,

and it's very secluded.

There were a lot of little inlets.

'It's very easy to get cut off by the tide there.'

All of that part of the coastline gets submerged every time.

It's been half an hour since the alarm was raised,

and with the tide still coming in and the sea just now meters

from the bottom of the cliffs,

there are real fears for the woman's safety.

If a person is stuck

on a fast-approaching tide and they're cut off

and there is no escape via land, you're going to have to swim for it.

There's no other option.

The first thing you notice is how cold the water is.

And when you've got no means of escape,

that must just be absolutely terrifying.

As the rising sea starts to reach the foot of the cliffs,

the crew spot something at the water's edge.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll let coastie know.

The woman has barely a metre of land left to stand on.

Brighton Lifeboat, we've located the person on the eastern end

of Saltdean under the cliff.

She was confused, she was panicking, you know,

and who could blame her?

If you don't get help and you can't swim

in freezing cold water in all of your clothes,

you'll drown.

Just under a pole length. Just in.

I'll keep it there.

-Are you all right?

-Yeah.

-Jump.

There isn't anything else after us.

There's no other group of people that go out into the water

to get people out of it.

If we hadn't have turned up, she would've turned up dead.

-Are you OK? You're not cold or...got any injuries?

-No.

-Do you need any medical care?

-No.

-No?

-I'm fine.

-OK.

-ON RADIO:

-'Lifeboat to Southern coastguard.'

-ON RADIO:

-'Roger.'

OK, good. Well done. Welcome back.

-LAUGHTER

-If you follow me...

'I'm a very emotional person.'

I think events like that always make me appreciate what I've got.

-Brilliant. Thank you. OK, no worries.

-That's it. Thank you.

No worries. Cheers.

And how lucky I am to have my family, my friends.

Summer is coming to an end,

but in Newquay there are still plenty of holiday-makers

on the beaches.

Mid-afternoon,

the station receive a call from the coastguard.

SIREN BLARES

-ON RADIO:

-'Roger on that. Thank you. We'll get the coastguard out.'

We were told that there were two people in the water

up to half a mile off Polly Joke.

That immediately is alarm bells, so it was go, go, go.

Get on the boat!

Set between two headlines, Polly Joke is a narrow beach

with a powerful rip current that can easily catch out

unsuspecting swimmers.

Riptides can exist at any beach.

It's a current of water that moves out to sea,

so it's taking you out of your depth and away from the beach.

It's a ten-year-old boy who has been caught in the rip.

His father ran in to save him and now both are in trouble.

I guess his father's instincts kicked in.

As soon as he saw the boy in difficulty,

he's just ran for the water,

and it's not always the right thing to do.

Going in after someone else

is one of the most common causes of drowning.

At Polly Joke beach alone, three adults drowned last year

trying to save children in almost identical circumstances.

You just do everything you can, and on that day,

everybody performed outstandingly.

Just sometimes you can't... you're just too late.

The longer the boy and his dad are pulled out by the rip current,

the harder it is for the crew to predict where they'll be.

Ten minutes into the search

they spot two casualties in the water.

Front. Get up the front.

The crew prioritise the boy.

Are you all right? Good lad. You take a seat back here then.

'I was just there'

with him last time, and then it all happened quite suddenly.

The sea just kind of took me out.

I just didn't really know what to do.

I was trying to swim back in. I got quite scared.

And then my dad came out for me.

It was quite hard to accept that I'd got out.

But I was scared cos my dad was still in the water.

'We were in a lot of trouble. I knew we were in trouble.'

There was no fighting it at all.

I went into the rip.

I put my head down and swam, and the next thing, I put my head up,

the board was in front of me and I grabbed hold of it.

My dad told me to hold on to my body board

cos it would keep us afloat.

You hear stories that it's the ones that aren't with the board

that don't come back,

so I knew the importance of staying with the board, whatever happened.

I didn't even hear them.

I looked over my shoulder and they were just there.

It was one of the best sights ever.

The father did a fantastic job.

Essentially, the father saved his son's life.

There was a lot of relief. That's the main feeling.

But there's also an element of

he was told to stay in with everyone else.

He did get carried away,

and he kept saying, "I'm very, very sorry."

So, he did get a little bit of a telling off

when everyone else had gone home.

499 miles from Newquay, a lifeboat station on a remote Scottish island

has been alerted to a boat approaching the harbour.

The artists from France have survived their journey

and made it all the way to Islay.

Everything. We broke everything. From the engine to the radios.

Big leaks, huge leaks.

HE LAUGHS

Everything.

With only metres to go, there's still time for one final mishap.

This time, it's the Islay lifeboat crew to the rescue.

Their antique boat will finally become whisky barrels,

but only if they make it to the distillery.

Whoa!

Luke, it's going to go over.

Fuck sake!

Pull!

HE LAUGHS

-Thank you very much.

-Pleasure.

-This was amazing.

The end result, no doubt, will be wonderful.

I don't expect I'll ever get to taste it.

It will be bottled in some months,

and I hope it will have the taste of sea, wind and adventure.

'Do you think that you will have another sailing adventure?'

As soon as possible. Of course.

Of course, of course.

As summer draws to a close,

the RNLI's busiest period is over for another year.

This season across Britain, volunteers have come to the aid

of over 4,000 people and saved more than 150 lives.

All of our casualties are either somebody's child, somebody's mother,

somebody's father, somebody's brother, somebody's sister.

You know, you put yourselves in their position.

Summer or winter, 365 days of the year,

it's good to know that there's a lifeboat out there if you need it.

After 41 years, the day will come when I'll hang the pager up,

and hand it back in, but at the moment, there's a job to be done.

Yeah, ten-second rule. Just go on. Do it.

Faisal, the young man who had to be rescued from the Thames

after his YouTube stunt went badly wrong,

donated all the proceeds generated by the video to the RNLI.

I'm really thankful I didn't die.

I'd obviously never do it again,

and I advise people to respect the water and stuff like that.

#respectthewater

You've got a bald person at 9 o'clock.

The swimmer who was missing in Brighton did eventually show up...

-Bald person at 9 o'clock.

-..alive and well.

He got himself out of the water

but couldn't find his way back to his friends.

-Is it your leg in the welly or your leg itself?

-The leg.

-The leg itself, is it?

-Yeah.

Eira has suffered no lasting ill effects

after getting stuck in the rocks,

but the experience has taught her a valuable lesson.

I still play in the sea, I still like the sea,

but I know that I didn't really think of it as a place of danger

before that happened,

but now I know that it's a place you need to be careful in.

Gently does it. Easy.

The lady who was pulled from the River Thames

suffering mental health problems is doing well.

All right, we've got you.

She's extremely grateful to the volunteers

who were there to save her life.