A family of four got stuck on a secluded beach near Whitsand Bay after stopping their dinghy to have a BBQ, sparking an emergency rescue.

Looe Coastguard, Tamar Coastguard, and Plymouth RNLI worked together to assist the family who had become stuck on a secluded beach near Wiggle Cliff, Whitsand Bay, around 9.30pm last night.

Rescue teams found it difficult to locate the family due to "poor communications and lack of daylight" and used flares to assist in identifying where they were.

After around four hours, the family were brought back to the Cremyll Ferry safe and well.

A spokesperson for Looe Coastguard said: "A family of 4 persons had earlier landed their RIB on a secluded beach near Wiggle Cliff, Whitsand Bay but had difficulties relaunching due to the changing sea conditions and hence had ultimately become cutoff.

"Locating the casualties was difficult due to the poor communications and lack of daylight.

"Parachute flares were used to assist in identifying their location."

Coastguard at a previous night rescue
Coastguard at a previous night rescue

A spokesperson for the Tamar Coastguard Team said that the family arrived at the beach by dinghy for a BBQ but the "wind had freshened and the dinghy became swamped".

The spokesperson added: "Although a little wet and cold they were fit and well all had life jackets but no VHF radio or flares so appropriate safety advice was given.

"A good outcome well done everyone."

Where is the Plymouth Coastguard team based?

The station is located at the end of Tapson Drive opposite Fort Stamford. The team is near to the popular areas of Jennycliff and Mount Batten.

There are many UK Coastguard operations rooms positioned around the UK that are manned 24 hours a day. They control and mobilise search and rescue assets such as the coastguard rescue teams, RNLI lifeboats and the coastguard helicopters, to sea or coastal incidents.

When you dial 999 for the coastguard, it is the ops room staff that you speak to directly.

Who is in the coastguard team?

There are 14 coastguard personnel who all have a mix of backgrounds, including IT, engineering, emergency services, land registry, Border Force, and Water sports instruction, and their experience amongst the team ranges from six months to over 50 years.

Do the coastguard get paid?

There is no on-call allowance for being a coastguard, only modest expenses - and they can be expected to be called out 24/7, 365 days a year, by pager.

Individual members respond when they are available to do so.

What can the Plymouth Coastguard rescue team do?

The primary roles are:

Water Rescue

The team are fully trained in coastal water rescue.

They can initiate immediate rescue of persons in the water. The team are also able to retrieve persons cut off by the tide using wading techniques, set up bank-side safety for searching challenging areas and runner rescue where we can use urban features to secure ourselves in a hostile environment for example retrieving a casualty from the end of s pier in stormy weather.

The team also has a flood response capability.

First Aid/Advanced Casualty Care

The team carry and have been trained to use a comprehensive first aid kit which includes advanced measures such as airways, bag valve mask, neck collars, pelvic splint and tourniquets etc.

All members of the team have completed a first response course in casualty care with a focus on trauma.


The team are highly trained in search techniques for missing/despondent persons within the literal coastal area.

The team has person profiling for different types of incident and excellent local knowledge of our coastal environment.

They can also call upon further assets such as lifeboats and helicopters to further increase our probability of detection, and are soon to further improve our search training and will be moving to a new search protocol called LAMPS which will better integrate us with the police by using the same search protocol.

Rope Rescue

The team are qualified in technical rope rescue meaning we can access, stabilise and retrieve a casualty.

They carry 200m of rope on the vehicle which is far more than needed for any cliff in are area, and can also provide this skill for vertical rescue into boats or rock armour where needed.

Casualty extraction

The team carry two types of stretcher on their vehicle both of which can be used to carry patients from a point of danger to a point of safety. They often work alongside the ambulance service with injured casualties on beaches/difficult to access areas.


HM Coastguard also have a responsibility to pyrotechnics and ordinance such as old bombs washed up on the coastline.

The team are trained to assess these incidents and implement a cordon. The Coastguard can use exemptions to transport marine flares/ pyrotechnics. With ordinance the coastguard will liaise with local Royal Navy EOD to arrange recovery and disposal of the item.

Helicopter landing sites

In poor weather where the coastguard helicopter cannot land at the hospital the team will deploy and set up an emergency landing site.

To do this the team will choose a suitable location usually Plymouth Hoe for us and secure the site. They will complete a sweep for foreign objects due to dangers from helicopter downdraft and relay weather condition/ wind direction to the incoming aircraft.

Off road

The coastguard operate a 4x4 vehicle with off-road tyres and have the ability to travel through areas of rough terrain or equally snow/sand etc.

Across the coast this was utilised during snow earlier in the year.


With the vehicle and individual VHF radios they have the ability to speak to other teams, and rescue assets such as lifeboats and rescue helicopters. They provide the eyes and ears for HM Coastguard operations centres. The 999 Control room in Falmouth also operates airwave communication to keep in touch with the other three emergency services if required.

You can follow the Plymouth Coastguard on Twitter @PlymCoastguard for all the latest updates.



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