ONE of the youngest volunteers at the RNLI lifeboat station in Lyme Regis has just completed three years of training to become a fully qualified sea-going crew member.

Kyle Knight, 27, was a ‘guinea pig’ when the Lyme Regis station was chosen to trial a new competency scheme for lifeboat crew. He joined the crew in 2019 but his training was interrupted by lockdown.

The station’s volunteer training co-ordinator Jon Broome said: “Kyle was a model student, and as a guinea pig in the new training system he passed every assessment of his skills first time.”

Lyme-born Kyle recently left the town council, where he had been a maintenance operative for nine years, and is now a trainee plumber.

He said: "I have always enjoyed fishing, I love the sea and I feel it is so rewarding to be helping people in all sorts of trouble around the coast.”

Kyle’s training involved achieving many skills including towing, anchoring, chart plotting, use of radar and navigating.