12/08/2026
Well Done to you all , Legends 👏👏👏
🚨Youghal RNLI on back to back callouts to a passenger vessel taking on water and man injured with shark bite🚨
Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday 11 August) in Youghal Harbour, a 28-foot traditional half-decker vessel with 11 passengers, one crew member and a dog onboard, ran into difficulty and began taking on water. A nearby motor vessel, the MFV Kestral, owned and operated by Jack Nolan came to their assistance with crewmember Liam Keogh. Jack and Liam are both volunteer Helms with Youghal lifeboat. While en route they learned that the situation was more serious than initially thought, with a significant amount of water coming into the vessel and Youghal RNLI was requested to launch.
After arriving on scene, Liam Keogh boarded the casualty vessel and helped take the eleven passengers off and onto the safety of the Kestral boat. Youghal lifeboat arrived on scene under the Helm of Alan Revins where he went aboard the casualty vessel with a salvage pump, which by now was taking on a large amount of water and quickly got the flooding under control. Shortly afterwards the three vessels arrived in the Market dock where all passengers were safety brought ashore.
Youghal Fire Service was also in attendance and offered a large salvage pump along with members of Youghal Coast Guard who assisted passengers coming ashore and at the pontoon with the berthing of the vessels.
Youghal RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager John Hearne said, ‘The quick actions of Jack Nolan and Liam Keogh were instrumental in the successful rescue and with the pair, joined on scene by their RNLI colleagues, Alan Revins, Declan Troy and Jason Innes, in the lifeboat, all twelve people were brought to safety in a matter of minutes. Our lifeboat crew train to every eventuality and this callout shows how quickly a small ingress of water can turn into a real-life emergency.’
A short time later, while the volunteer crew were washing down the lifeboat, the crew were requested to launch again. This time both Jack and Liam were aboard as lifeboat crew, joined by Helm Alan Revins and crew member Jason Innes. The lifeboat was requested to go to the assistance of a person aboard a leisure fishing vessel who had sustained a serious injury, which was inflicted from a shark bite, southeast of Ram Head. A paramedic winchman from the Waterford based helicopter Rescue 117 treated the injuries. Youghal lifeboat assisted by pacing the casualty vessel as a visual reference for the helicopter crew and the casualty was then airlifted to Cork University Hospital. Ballycotton all-weather lifeboat was also in attendance. 🛟
