Written by George Crumpler from Ceredigion Coastguards:
Ceredigion Coastguards are based at Gwbert, New Quay, Aberystwyth and Borth. These teams have 11 or 12 part-time volunteers each who are all trained in Cliff Rescue, Search and Mud Rescue.
HM Coastguard is a part of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and is responsible for all Civil Maritime Search and Rescue. The organisation is split into Sectors. The local Sector of which I am the Manager is Cambrian, it runs from Cardigan bridge in the south to Friog in the north.
I am responsible for the training, equipment and general management of the 57 volunteers we have in the Sector which also includes 11 at Aberdovey.
Each station has a four wheel drive vehicle and is fully equipped to carry out Maritime search and rescue.
Last year, 229 incidents were attended by Ceredigion Coastguard teams. These vary from on-scene co-ordination of lifeboats towing in broken down vessels to cliff rescues at places like Constitution Hill and Borth Head. We also carry out numerous searches for missing persons/children around the coastline each year.
Each team has at least one 2-4 hour training session per month. We are also seeking volunteers to replace leaving members. Team members have to be over 16, in good health, live within 20 minutes of their parent station and have good availability for call out.
Contact numbers for HM Coastguard are listed below:
In EMERGENCY dial 999 and ask for the coastguard.Milford Haven MRCC 01646 690909 Cambrian Sector Office 01970 612220Written by George Crumpler, Manager of Ceredigion Coastguards.
View photos of the coastguards in training...
Find out more about the volunteers who give up their time to work as coastguards in Ceredigion. They were called out to deal with more than 200 incidents in 2005 and they're now on the look-out for new members. 
