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A handful of hardy individuals got 2007 off to the chilliest of starts by taking the plunge in the icy seas off Sandown Bay.

In a bid to raise cash for the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat, one of it's trainee crewmen, Dan Morgan, and two mystery women, who left without giving their names, swam sub-zero surf on New Year's Day.

They were supported by a good-sized crowd, which gathered near the lifeboat station between Sandown & Lake.

Dan, a 23-year-old workshop manager, of High Street, Sandown, dived from the lifeboat into the drink and swam 60ft to shore.

He said it had been too cold to stay in the water for any longer than five minutes.

Once Sponsorship is collected, Dan, who has already pledged to take part in next year's dip, expects to raise about £200.

One of the ladies also informed a lifeboat crew member that she had raised over £100 for the event.

The fifth annual dip attracted the lowest number of participants to date so far, as last years swim involved up to 40 swimmers raising cash in aid of the lifeboat and the IW Bowling club.

Mark Birch, coxswain and vice-chairman of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat, put the dip in dippers down to the change of ownership of the Strollers Cafe near to the station.

"Bob Jackson, who owned the cafe before, used to organise the event and no one else had stepped into his place. We put it together at the last minute in December 2006," said Mr Birch.

"We've had between 30 and 40 people take part in the previous years and hope to revive it by organising it from October onwards. Our Lifeboat needs about £10,000 a year to run and we rely on donations, fundraising and small grants, particularly to cover the cost of insurance."

Dan Morgan, centre, with the two anonymous dippers, who joined him to brave the waves in aid of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore lifeboat - Can anyone identify the two women? Photo taken by SSILB.

All the crew of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat would like to greatly thank the participants for their support given to the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat.

A WOMAN cut off by the tide and clinging to the cliff at Dunnose Point was rescued on Sunday by Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat.

The woman, believed to be in her 30s, was picked off the ledge and taken ashore after the alarm was raised by a member of Shanklin Deep Sea Fishing Club.

Coastguards praised the actions of lifeboat coxswain Mark Birch, who made a decision to beach his lifeboat on the ledge so the casualty could be recovered.
“The lady was very cold, muddy and shaken but glad to be picked up and very embarrassed about it all,” said a lifeboat spokesman.

Ventnor Coastguard spokesman Chris Welsford said: “This piece of coast is very remote, even relatively close to Shanklin, the high cliffs and muddy terrain make it very dangerous and people are often cut off by the tide with no way back to the main beach.

“We urge anyone tempted to walk along this section between Shanklin and Bonchurch to tell someone where they are going and what time they expect to return.”

The following letter was placed into the County Press 'Readers letters and options' section of the paper.

Letter From Gordon phillips (Shanklin Deep Sea Fishing Club), Chineberg, 4 Popham Road, Shanklin:

On Sunday morning, about 10:30am a young lady beach walker got cut off and stranded by the incoming tide, Shanklin side of Horse Ledge.

Members of Shanklin Deep Sea Fishing Club were working on their boats but see what was happening and quickly phoned the Coastguard.

Within about six minutes the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat (Sandown Rescue One) roared past us on its way to the lady in trouble, who could get not further.

The coxswain of the Lifeboat held his craft against the cliff and carried out a text book rescue.

The lady was put ashore at our fishing club where the lifeboat's medic attended her until the coastguard arrived and took over.

It was an excellent example of our lifeboatmen going about their business so expertly and efficiently.

1st coxswain Mark Birch helming Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat (Sandown Rescue One), who carried out the text book rescue with crew members Garry Spearhead & Mark Adams-Rose.

Businesses and bands back a musical fundraiser for Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat.

The gig at Shanklin's Chapter One was headlined by Ryde band Kody, who were supported by Carousel Era, The Wildoats and Jacuna.

More than £700 was raised on the night from donations and a raffle with prizes from Island businesses.

The Solent Inn, Hamilton's, Quay Arts, Ryde Tandori and Liquid Lounge were among the organisations supporting the night.

"It was a really good night. We were a bit worried we might not raise much, but when we hit the £500 mark we all relaxed and the money kept coming in and all the bands were great," said frontman Gareth Icke.

Liz Durling (SSILB Fundraiser) with band members from Kody and the crowd who helped to raise £700 for SSILB.

All the crew of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat would like to greatly thank all the bands, businesses for their support given to the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat, we all really enjoyed the night and look forward to another night.

Today the draw of the 1st SSILB Winter / Spring Lottery Draw took place at Sandown & Shanklin Lifeboat Station and was drawn by Sandown Sea Scott's.

Mr & Mrs Towner & Grand Children that received the PS3 with SSILB Crew Member Richard (Spike) Chantler.

Shane Chesselk (Currys Colleague) presents the 2nd Prize Winners with their new Sony DVD Player - John Newsham with his Daughter and SSILB Chairmen Ron Teesdale.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat would like to congratulate all the winners, we would also like to thank all of the people who purchased tickets for the Winter / Spring Lottery and helped raise £1400.00 in aid of the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat was called out by the Solent Coastguard on Sunday the 11^th March to reports of a may day call on vhf channel 16 in the Ventnor area and it was also picked up by the Ventnor Coastguard team who were on duty at the time.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat proceeded in searching from Ventnor Haven to Black Gang Chine shore line and 3 miles out to sea & nothing was found.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat was released from the search by the Solent Coastguard and returned to station.

On returning to our station in Sandown we were alerted by a member of the public to a dead dolphin washed up on the shore line, whilst wearing protective equipment it was moved up the shore and disposed of today by the Council.

Today the new look Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat Website was given a Web Award from The Maritime Web Awards and we would like to share with you their comments about our Website:

The Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat station website has been put forward for a Maritime Web Award, we are delighted to let you know that the quality and contents of the website display such an outstanding level of maritime information that your website is eligible for our GOLD Maritime Web Award.

If you would like to visit the Maritime Web Awards website (link below) you'll see that these awards are totally free and are completely non-commercial and are not awarded lightly.

To win either the SILVER or GOLD awards, websites must provide useful maritime information that help educate the general public about some aspect of the maritime world, whether historical or currently factual.

The Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat Station website is the sort of website that people could easily get lost in for hours (especially with all those great videos !), while also informing people of the vital work done by your lifeboat station.

I must again stress, the Maritime Web Awards are totally non-commercial and are solely there to encourage those who take a lot of time and effort creating great maritime websites for the world to enjoy (and hopefully learn from !), but whose webmasters so often get little more thanks than a few nice comments in their guestbook's!

The SSILB Web Team would like to thank The Maritime Web Awards for their kind comments about or Website and are always looking into new idea's to keep our website one of the best out there.

Today the new look Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat Website was launched, this new version has been built due to growth of information, meaning browsers had to dig for some information, the new website resolves this by expanding the menu system, also our old website was 2 years old on June the 17th, bringing 238899 hits to the website to date, also a GOLD award from Maritime Web Awards, 'the quality and contents of the website display such an outstanding level of maritime information that your website is eligible for our GOLD Maritime Web Award'.

The website is still being built by our very own crew member, Richard Chantler, who built the whole website from scratch in 2005 and has taken the site from strength to strength.

There will be even more improvements over the next couple of months to come, we have also removed our guest book due to spam and felt that people were not using the service correctly.

On Friday the 10th of August 2007, the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat was paged by Solent Coastguard to reports from a member of the public, of a capsized catamaran 1 mile off Sandown Pier that had been not righted for some time.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat proceeded to the capsized catamaran (18ft), once on scene SSILB found that the mast stay had broken, three people on board and no one hurt.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat transferred crew members from the catamaran onto SSILB, SSILB then towed with one of the catamarans crew members steering back to Yaverland, were it was taken ashore and placed onto their trailer.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat tows the de-masted catamaran back to Yaverland.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat returned back to base and onto operational pager.

AN OVERTURNED catamaran landed two people in trouble a mile off Culver Cliff on Friday the 17th of August 2007.

Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat was called out to the incident at 2.45pm and the vessel was righted and made her own way back to the mainland.

On Saturday the 18th of August, at 06:15 morning, the lifeboat was in action again when it was called out by Solent Coastguard to assist a 33ft motor sail vessel in difficulties two miles east of the lifeboat station.

A tired partially sighted sailor in his late seventies was struggling to cope in a force 5 to 6 southerly wind and a heavy sea and the lifeboat put a crew member aboard to help out.

On Sunday the 26th of August 2007, the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat station was phoned by Solent Coastguard to a Pan Pan, the 37ft motor sail Vessel 'Roma' had fouled Propeller on a pot marker, she was positioned 1000 Meters from Ventnor and was in need of assistance.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat proceeded to the position , on scene the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat crew found that the 'Roma' was at anchor, her crew had spotted the pot marker, but had not spotted a discoloured rope coming off the pot marker that was floating on the surface, which went under the vessel, fouling the prop whilst under power and was not sure how badly the rope had fouled the prop.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat placed a crew member aboard the 'Roma', then attached a line to the bow of the 'Roma' and began to tow the 'Roma' in the opposite direct to the current to give the pot marker rope some slack.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat crew member Richard Chantler (Spike) onboard 'Roma'.

The crew member from The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat, waited for the slack rope to appear from the stern of 'Roma', but the rope did not appear, with this the crew of 'Roma' were asked to pull their anchor up, as it seemed that the prop may have cut through the pot marker rope and may not be tethered.

The crew from 'Roma' & crew the member from SSILB started to lifted the anchor, when it became very light on the anchor rope, the anchor rope had snapped several metres under the water line and SSILB was informed.

SSILB then took 'Roma' into tow, SCG was informed that 'Roma' was now in tow, that SSILB had spotted a dive vessel on the way to the assistance of 'Roma' and was going to try to get their attention to see if they could dive down and free the prop.

SCG called on Channel 16 + 67 with no comms back, also SSILB called on the same channels with no comms back, 'Roma' was then placed onto the new Shanklin Bay moorings, were the SSILB crew had a suggestion - the 1st Coxswain was a diver, as well as one of the SSILB crew members onboard, they suggested that one of them dived and freed the rope from the prop and the crew from 'Roma' agreed that they would like for that to happen.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat returned to base and collected the dive equipment.

1st Coxswain Mark Birch prepares his dive equipment and Steve Lacey assists with the dive equipment onboard the SSILB Atlantic 21.

The SSILB 1st Coxswain entered the water with the diving equipment, cut free the rope from 'Roma' s prop and was recovered back onto SSILB.

The crew of 'Roma' was asked to check the steering to make sure it was freely working and that the engine was working correctly.

'Roma' made her way to back to Gosport (Portsmouth), where her crew were from and all onboard were very grateful.

The Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat escorted 'Roma' to make sure she was underway with no further problems, then returned to base and back onto operational pager.
Crew: MB, SL & RC - Trac: RC & DS

Assisted = 6

RESCUERS branded a father as irresponsible for sparking an alert at sea with his six-year-old son.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat was called out by Solent Coastguard on Sunday (the 26th of August 2007) afternoon by a family worried the father and his son had not returned in a hired canoe.

The father decided to take his son to Culver Cliff, but when they did not return after one-and-a-half hours his family dialled 999.

Inshore Lifeboat Coxswain Mark Birch said "A search was started from Sandown Pier to Whitecliff Bay and they were found just off Red Cliff. This was a one-man canoe and the six-year-old was perched on the back and not wearing the buoyancy jacket that the father had on his lap. We (the Lifeboat crew) made the father aware of the dangers, asked him to place the jacket on his son, then asked if he wanted to come aboard the Lifeboat, which he refused, as he said he could make it back and then escorted them both back to shore to their family."

Just six weeks since two people drowned when they fell overboard from a boat near Bembridge, search & rescue teams say people are still risking their lives on the water.

Over the bank holiday weekend Sandown and Shanklin Lifeboat was called out to find a father and his six-year-old son who had been reported missing on a canoe trip near Culver cliff.

They were found safe-and-well but the child was perched on the back of the canoe with the only lifejacket on the father's lap.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore lifeboat 1st Coxswain / Vice Chairmen / Operations Manager, Mark Birch has be nominated for an award for Emergency Service Person of the Year, he will be going to the awards night at Cowes Yacht Haven, honouring some of the Island's dedicated, caring and brave individuals tonight.

All the crew of SSILB would like to wish Mark good luck and to bring the award home.

People's People Awards
Friday the 21th of September 2007

Isle of Wight Radio is positioned right in the heart of the community and thrives on getting involved with events throughout the year.

This year Isle of Wight Radio hosted one of our very own...

The Isle of Wight People's People Awards 2007!

Isle of Wight Radio held the first annual People's People Awards at Cowes Yacht Haven, honouring some of the Island's dedicated, caring and brave individuals, those people who don't think twice about going out of their way for others, as well as others who have demonstrated amazing acts of bravery and compassion.

We teamed up with Mountjoy to ask the listeners to nominate their 'hero' in a number of different categories and give them the recognition they deserve.

There were 10 awards in all with the overall 'People's Person 2007' going to a truly remarkable young man who deservedly received a standing ovation – Asa Singleton.

When he heard he had been nominated for the Emergency Service Person of the Year Award, Mark Birch thought he must have mis-heard and had to ring back IW Radio back.

Mark, 37, has been the coxswain of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore lifeboat for the last 14 years and also operations manager of the station, both of which are voluntary posts.

In the citation for the Emergency Service Person of the Year award, he was described as being a truly professional, dedicated to the cause and immensely popular with his colleagues / crew.

He has attended all 20 call-outs the lifeboat has received since February this year, some of them unpleasant, but has always taken everything in his stride, going above and beyond the call of duty whenever necessary.

Mark, who lives in Church Road, Shanklin, said he was knocked sideways to hear he had been nominated, let alone win the award.

"When I received the phone call, I was so shocked I had to phone back and asked them to repeat it," he said.

Emergency Service Person of the Award winner Mark Birch onboard Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat with his award.

All of the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat crew & colleagues, would like to congratulate Mark Birch on winning the Emergency Service Person of the Year award 2007 - Well done Mark.

Today the draw of the 2nd SSILB Lottery Draw took place at Sandown & Shanklin Lifeboat Station.

The three winning tickets were drawn by Mr Gladdis from Sandown (selected at random from members of the public) and SSILB would like to thank him for his help on drawing for us.

Our 2007 Summer Lottery was a success for the Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat and we appreciate all the support we have had over the summer months from residents and visitors alike.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore lifeboat is funded entirely by contributions from the local community and visitors to our area of the Isle of Wight.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat would like to give a BIG THANK YOU to it's fundraising team who helped with the 2007 Summer Lottery and gave their time voluntarily to support SSILB.

Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat would also like to thank the following business / persons for selling tickets for SSILB:

The crew of Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat will get new dry suits after a £900 donation from Ladbrokes.

A chance meeting on Bonchurch beach between Ruth McHugh, a district supervisor with Ladbrokes, and Liz Dorling, a member of the lifeboat fundraising team, led to the donation.

Mrs McHugh relayed Mrs Dorling's cry for help to the Sandown High Street branch manager, Donald Moakes, who, keen to help an Island charity, contacted Ladbrokes' fundraising arm.

Everyone at the lifeboat station, which has had its busiest summer for years following a record number of callouts, is thrilled with the donation from the business.

From left - Chairman of the Inshore Lifeboat, Ron Teesdale, Jo Donovan, Don Moakes and hollie Stevenson from Ladbrokes, Vice Chairman / 1st Coxswain Mark Birch and Lifeboat fundraising member Liz Dorling.

All of the Sandown & Shanklin Inshore Lifeboat crew & fundraising team, would like to give a BIG THANK YOU to Ladbrokes for their kind donation.