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.”

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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.”

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