A volunteer for the Port St Mary RNLI crew is giving up alcohol for an entire year to raise funds for the charity that saves lives at sea.

Danny Grace, who joined the RNLI as a volunteer crew member in April 2020, began his challenge on Friday.

Mr Grace is aiming to raise enough money to equip and train one volunteer lifeboat crew member, the equivalent of what the RNLI has invested in him.

In total this costs £4,661.

This is made up of £3,261 for the kit and £1,400 for the training.

Mr Grace’s motivation for doing the challenge is to help raise funds in order to keep the vital service running, but also to raise awareness of the RNLI and what it does, with the hope of inspiring the next generation of RNLI volunteers.

Since signing up as crew, he has been equipped by the charity with the necessary kit to volunteer on both Port St Mary’s all-weather Trent class lifeboat Gough Ritchie II, as well as the inshore D-Class lifeboat Spirit of Leicester.

Mr Grace has attended weekly training exercises at Port St Mary lifeboat station both at sea and ashore, learning essential skills such as radio communication, navigation, boat handling, and search and rescue.

Working as part of a team, the volunteers practice a wide range of rescue scenarios in order to prepare for any type of call out.

It is all of this which has given him the idea of this challenge.

In the short time that Danny has been a volunteer crew member of Port St Mary RNLI, he has already been on numerous call outs.

His most memorable call-out took place last November when three yachtsmen were saved after their 40-foot yacht became fouled in Bay Ny Carrickey.