BUDE Coastguard Rescue Team has welcomed a new recruit.

Lotte Skinner, 27, joins the team after an intense two weeks of preliminary training in and around the sector base in Bideford, bringing her up to the level that is required to join the team as an active coastguard rescue officer, and within which the rest of her training will now get underway.

Her initial training consisted of all aspects of coastguard rescue team operations, including search training, water rescue, cliff rescue and various other skills and subjects, which all coastguard rescue officers must be proficient in. She is also now fully qualified in CERCC (Coastguard Emergency Response Casualty Care), the coastguard-specific enhanced emergency first aid course that all rescue officers must undertake.

With the arrival of Lotte, Bude Coastguard Rescue Team is now a 12-person team, made up of three women and nine men, all of whom live and work within a close radius of the station in Upton.