Girvan Lifeboat volunteers announce 200 hour birthday challenge

As part of the RNLI 200th birthday year celebrations and events, Girvan's volunteer crew sign up to unique fundraising challenge.

On the 24th July, volunteers from Girvan lifeboat will embark on a 200 hour float in Girvan harbour in a life raft.

This will involve the raft being manned (or womanned) continuously for the 200 hours finishing at 18:24 on the 1st August (or in date form 1824, the year the RNLI were formed).

Ocean safety who supply the RNLI with our life rafts are kindly donating a life raft for this cause and we are so appreciative to them for this.

As part of the challenge, we have urged the local community to get involved and contacted the local primary schools in Girvan to ask the kids to name the challenge, so keep your eyes peeled for news of the winning selection in the coming weeks.

Lifeboat Treasurer/crewman John Tait, says of the event, "We wanted to come up with something fairly unique to highlight the RNLI'S 200th year here in Girvan, the liferaft challenge is something very different to our normal fundraising efforts, and in that we hope to spark support and interest from the local community. We have deliberately picked the finishing time of 18:24 on the 1st August with 1824 being the significant date of when the RNLI was formed which we wanted to tie in some way or another.

A liferaft in any conditions is not a very nice place to be and will certainly test the best of us being in the confined space for multiple hours for each crew member taking part. There will be sponsor forms issued soon and a specific gofund me setup to allow the public to donate and support our crew throughout the challenge and we’d be very grateful for the publics support on this challenge, and look forward to them supporting our crew from the quayside when the event is in full swing.

Any business wishing to be involved and sponsor us we’d be delighted if you could get in touch by emailing [email protected] "

More posts will follow on our facebook page soon regarding updates.

Key facts about the RNLI

The RNLI charity saves lives at sea. Its volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The RNLI operates 238 lifeboat stations in the UK and Ireland and more than 240 lifeguard units on beaches around the UK and Channel Islands. The RNLI is independent of Coastguard and government and depends on voluntary donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824, its lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved over 142,700 lives.

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Contacting the RNLI - public enquiries

Members of the public may contact the RNLI on 0300 300 9990 (UK) or 1800 991802 (Ireland) or by email.