The Royal Dutch Rescue Society (KNRM) sailed nearly 2,525 times in 2022 to help people at sea. This is about 10 percent more than the previous year.
The organization speaks of a “challenging and intense year”. The KNRM saved a total of over four thousand people last year.
According to a KNRM spokesman, the people at sea had to be rescued for various reasons. Not only from the water, but also because they were injured on a ship or because a boat with a broken engine had to be towed to port.
In addition, the KNRM also brought 155 animals safely ashore. They had to be rescued after, for example, jumping overboard or being swept off the pier.
According to the KNRM, the number of searches has also increased “significantly”. This was 37 percent more than a year earlier. In total, the KNRM searched for missing persons 240 times.
In 220 cases it was a false alarm. According to the rescue company, many of these reports came from distressed swimmers who had lost sight of someone or thought a swimmer had disappeared underwater.
Actions with a negative outcome made a big impression
In 2022, according to the KNRM, there were also less successful actions that made a big impression. By this, the rescue service refers to the canoe accident on Lake Veluwe, the plane crash in the Hook of Holland and on the Zwarte Meer, two accidents on charter vessels in the Wadden Sea and the collision between a fast boat and a water taxi in which four people died.
The KNRM Helpt Assistie Centrum (KAC), an emergency center where people can call with non-urgent questions, saw the number of calls rise to more than a thousand last year.
In 2021 the center was called about eight hundred times by people who were having problems with unfurling sails or a boat engine, among other things. By solving these problems remotely, lifeboats had to sail less often.
