Coastguard incidents hit record high

COASTGUARD staff and volunteers were involved in a record number of operations last year, with incident numbers up more than 8% on the previous year.

A total of 3,488 people were rescued or assisted by the coastguard during 2007, although the personnel were not helped by 23 hoax calls during the year.

The leisure and recreation sector accounted for the highest rises in rescue totals — with yacht and dinghy incidents alone rising 50%.