RNLI Lifeboat crews delayed by muddy rescue call

Hoylake's hovercraft crew were part of the rescue team

Volunteers on their way to join a celebratory flotilla to mark 200 years of the RNLI were delayed when they were called to rescue a person stuck in waist-deep mud.

Boats from Hoylake and New Brighton were sent to the incident on Monday.

The person was freed a short time later near Leasowe Castle.

James Whiteley, from Hoylake RNLI, said it was a "timely reminder of the long tradition" of "volunteers dropping everything to assist those in need".

"We knew when the call came, we were needed elsewhere," he added.

HM Coastguard had tasked Hoylake RNLI's hovercraft Hurley Spirit and New Brighton's inshore lifeboat, Charles Dibdin, to deal with the incident alongside Wirral's Coastguard Rescue team.

Crews celebrated RNLI's bi-centenary at Liverpool's Pier Head by recreating an image from 1999

The New Brighton lifeboat was then able to join the flotilla where vessels sailed on the River Mersey at midday in a tribute to volunteers.

Hoylake's volunteer Hovercraft crew were later able to join in celebrations at station, with a slice of cake made especially by one of the volunteer crew.

The charity said it had saved the lives of some 146,000 people across the UK and Ireland since its launch in 1874, including 4,356 in north-west England.

It was founded in a London tavern on 4 March 1824 after an appeal from Sir William Hillary, who lived in the Isle of Man.

Since then, its crews have launched the lifeboats about 16,000 times in Merseyside, Lancashire and Cumbria.