A NEW Quay father and son walked half-dressed and barefoot to the RNLI stand at the London Boat Show at the ExCel Exhibition Centre in a symbolic protest against plans to axe New Quay’s all-weather lifeboat.

Lifeboat crewman Huw Williams, 43, and his nine-year-old son Steffan travelled over 250 miles to the capital to raise awareness of the RNLI’s plan to remove the lifeboat in 2020, creating what has been dubbed The Drowning Gap by the Ceredigion Lifeboat Campaign.

Campaigners say The Drowning Gap is the sea area in Cardigan Bay currently served by the all-weather lifeboat.

Under the current plans, when this boat is withdrawn at the end of its operational life, there will be a gap of over 70 miles of coastline between the nearest all-weather lifeboat stations in Barmouth and Fishguard.

The RNLI maintain replacing the all-weather boat with an Atlantic 85 inshore boat will allow crews to ‘respond quicker and travel further to help those in trouble at sea’.

But the Ceredigion Lifeboat Campaign claim that 25 per cent of rescues carried out could not have been achieved by the replacement boat.

“The Ceredigion coast is busy with passenger boats, leisure craft, and commercial fishing activity,” said Mr Williams. “Boats can sink and people can get swept out to sea in seconds.

“It is well-documented that hypothermia is a killer after 30 minutes and that means that every second counts.

“Whilst inshore lifeboats are good at what they do, they cannot launch in severe weather, meaning a wait of up to 90 minutes for a lifeboat to arrive."

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