While Storm Arwen battered the North East in November 2021, six lifeboat heroes were speeding into terrifying conditions and waves seven metres high to save a fishing boat stranded 73 miles offshore.
Now, Michael Nugent and the five-man crew he led out to sea from Tynemouth as the storm hit have all been awarded commendations by the RNLI. Michael himself has also been honoured with a chair's letter of thanks for his service.
Coxswain Michael led a crew of Dan Howe, Joe Smiles, Michael Brown, Rob Blake and Andy King out to sea that night. After a four hour journey through storm force conditions, the boat made it to the stricken vessel and began attempting the recovery.
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When the lifeboat was in a trough of one of the waves, the 20ft fishing vessel was higher than the highest point of the lifeboat. A tow rope line was attached, but just 15 minutes later the crew checked and found it had worn through to the main rope. The crew shortened the line and tried again, but in the shocking conditions, the same thing happened.
To solve this, Michael took a piece of the lifeboat's carpet and wrapped it around the tow line to protect it from wear. This ensured the crew didn't have to keep going out onto the deck in storm force conditions, holding for the rest of the trip back.
The lifeboat then made its way back to the Tyne arriving at 3pm, some 18 hours after setting off. The boat was remarkably ready to sale again just two hours later.
This week, a ceremony honouring the crew's bravery took place, led by area lifesaving manager Neil Hancock and Adrian Carey, a regional manager for the RNLI in the south-west. Michael and his crew were presented with their awards.
Heroic Dan Howe was in line for a second honour, too. He received a further commendation for saving the life of a person he heard calling for help while he was covering a lifeboat crew shift in Harwich.
The ceremony also saw awards for long service presented to David Robinson, George Jasper, David Stenhouse and Geoff Nugent. Geoff - Michael's father - was given an unprecedented 60 year long service certificate.
James Waters, spokesperson for Tynemouth RNLI said: "As Adrian recounted the rescue the whole room sat in awe of the achievements of our volunteers. This is a very well deserved award to Michael and the crew. Hearing about Dan's rescue whilst at Harwich too was inspiring and very well deserved."
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