Saving Lives at Sea

Every year, an army of unpaid volunteers from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution spend half a million hours saving lives at sea - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, whatever the weather

In Cornwall, newest recruit 18 year-old Shaunna is following in the family tradition and her grandfather's footsteps. After a successful first rescue of a teenage holiday maker, she has hopes to one day become Newquay's first helmswoman.

In the remote fishing village of Oban on the West coast of Scotland they also have a new 18 year-old recruit. Young Andrew and the rest of the crew are given a painful reminder of the dangers all lifeboat volunteers face when they are woken by their pagers in middle of the night to try and rescue the captain and crew of a fishing boat that is sinking, having run aground in the middle of a storm.

Volunteering with the RNLI inevitably means encountering and risking death, and is a sacrifice that takes its toll on the crew members and their families. But, coming as it does with the opportunity for ordinary men and women to save human life, it also has its own very unique rewards.