Baltimore RNLI

At the far South West corner of Ireland lies the small community of Baltimore where today a special ceremony took place to name their new €3million Tamar class lifeboat, The Alan Massey.

This is one of two RNLI stations in particular, which I support out of all the brilliant crews around the UK and Ireland (the other being RNLI Southwold in the far East of England) and I do like to follow their happenings too. So, today I was rather sad to have missed out on the opportunity for best value flight fares to enable me to return to West Cork this weekend and join in with events.

I had already acquainted myself with the then newly arrived RNLB Alan Massey during a visit I made to West Cork back in February, when I saw it sitting resplendent in the harbour.

The Baltimore lifeboat station (as seen in the first image) located at Bull Point just around the corner from the main harbour, was not first suited to the new arrival, and the Alan Massey had to be temporarily moored in Baltimore harbour. Tom Bushe, Lifeboat Operations Manager said at the ceremony today. "The Alan Massey has already been called out 14 times since it arrived on 15th February" The outgoing RNLB Hilda Jarrett Tyne class lifeboat, which had served Baltimore since 1988 was most notably involved in the Rambler rescue in August 2011. However, along with the successful rescues there were also tragedies, more recently witnessing the search for the missing crewmen from the Tit Bonhomme in Glandore Harbour.

Here, we should show our gratitude to all RNLI volunteers and I have every respect for their bravery and dedication. I would like to take this opportunity to wish the crew of the Alan Massey lifeboat all the very best in their new vessel, hope that they may continue to save many lives in the future and be a beacon of safety to all those in the seas around West Cork.