DORSET’S RNLI teams have had another busy year saving lives at sea- including one sailor found clinging to the wreckage of his boat.

Annual figures have been released by the RNLI and show that 2014 was another busy year.

Weymouth has two lifeboats – the all-weather and inshore craft and they were launched 60 times in 2014, rescuing 94 people and saving four lives.

Phil Hansford is the mechanic at Weymouth Lifeboat Station. He said the number of emergency shouts they were called to was down compared to other years and this was good as hopefully it meant people were becoming safer at sea.

The most memorable rescue for the team, Mr Hansford said, was in October when they were called to pick up a sailor who was stranded out to sea when his trimaran was dismasted.

A huge search was launched to find the sailor and he was spotted after being adrift for 12 hours.

The Weymouth lifeboat was sent to bring him back to the harbour.

Mr Hansford said it was dark and the seas were ‘quite lumpy’ when the team went out. He said: “It was a great outcome.”

The sailor, Mick Royton, 52, later thanked the search teams and said he felt ‘lucky to be alive.’ The Weymouth beach lifeguards at Greenhill and Weymouth beach dealt with 333 incidents across the summer, rescuing six people, helping 349 and saving one life.

In West Dorset, Lyme Regis lifeboat was launched 26 times and rescued 38 people, and the beach lifeguards responded to 160 incidents and helped 112 people.

Across the South West, lifeboats launched 1,560 times and 1,659 people were rescued – the highest since 2011.

Dorset’s 21 RNLI lifeguarded beaches saw 2,149 incidents, and lifeguards assisted 2,262 people and saved eight lives.

Richard Weeks, divisional operations manager, said: “The statistics show another busy year for our volunteer lifeboat crews and illustrate their true dedication to saving lives at sea.

“Not only did they spend the equivalent of 406 days at sea responding to the call of their pager, they collectively gave up 22,000 hours of their time to train on exercise to ensure they are ready to launch to any situation.

“This is a remarkable display of commitment, and we thank them wholeheartedly and also their families and employers who allow them to carry out their selfless work, whatever time of day and in all weathers.”

The most common launches of 2014 for the South West’s lifeboats were to sailing boats with 344 incidents, followed by powered pleasure craft with 326 call outs.

Machinery failure accounted for the largest number of these call-outs with 300 incidents – an increase on last year.