Breaking News
New inshore lifeboat for Clifden RNLI
Galway Bay fm newsroom – The lifeboat crew in Clifden have been familiarising themselves with their new boat, an Atlantic 85
The crew is also awaiting the delivery of an all-weather lifeboat, which will be trialled in Clifden for a year, to work alongside an inshore lifeboat.
The new lifeboat replaces the Atlantic 75 lifeboat that has been on service in the station since 1999.
The lifeboat called the Joyce King can operate in conditions up to a force seven and further to the Atlantic 75, allows for a fourth crewmember, more survivors and more kit onboard.
The new lifeboat has been made possible by a legacy from John Charles King of Lincolnshire in England, whose connection with the area hasn’t been established.
Four out of ten RNLI callouts occur in the hours of darkness and this new boat carries a searchlight, night vision equipment and illumination paraflares
Clifden RNLI’s Atlantic 75 will go on to serve at another lifeboat station in Enniskillen.
In the fourteen years the Benjamin Downing Fairbridge Atlantic 75 lifeboat was in Clifden it launched 115 times and brought 97 people to safety.