The August Bank Holiday weekend proved far from relaxing for the duty crews of the Navy’s Search and rescue unit in Cornwall.

The holiday call-outs for 771 Naval Air Squadron began on the Friday morning when Falmouth Coastguard scrambled the helicopter to airlift a passenger with a broken leg from a cruise ship off the Lizard.

Apart from having to divert the landing site to Boscawen Park because of poor weather, the flight went smoothly, as did a later recovery of a swimmer from rocks at the bottom of a 50ft cliff at Harlyn Bay, near Padstow, who was flown to the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

After a quiet Saturday, the squadron’s Sea King was in the air again on Sunday lunchtime to assist a civilian diver suffering symptoms of the bends off Newquay.

The diver, who had surfaced complaining of feeling unwell, was transferred from the dive support boat to Plymouth for specialist treatment.

The day ended with a search for a small boat missing on passage between Mevagissey and Falmouth, though in this case the Navy aircraft was stood down shortly after the call was received.

Bank Holiday Monday brought a succession of appeals for help, starting mid-morning with the recovery of a woman with a suspected broken ankle on a cliff path at Black Head, where there was enough room for the helicopter to land.

An evening mission to rescue two people cut off by the tide at Pentire Point required a Navy diver to be winched to the bottom of 60ft cliffs to allow the pair to be lifted out and handed over to the Coastguard unit at the top of the cliff.

En route back to Culdrose, near Helston, the helicopter was asked to help search for a missing yacht near Lizard Point, which was achieved in a visual and radar search, but there was no break as they were retasked on to help a man suffering chest pains on the cliffs at St Agnes.

After refuelling back at base, the Sea King arrived at the scene and found the man was 50ft down a cliff on a narrow path, with a paramedic in attendance.

To reach the casualty, the diver had to carry out a cliff walk down the rock face before placing the man in a stretcher for recovery to the helicopter and a transfer to a nearby ambulance.

The duty search and rescue crew was not the only Royal Navy air crew in action over the period.

While en route to take part in Navy Days at Plymouth, another 771 NAS aircraft was asked to help a dismasted yacht, but when it arrived the yacht’s crew confirmed that they could sort themselves out.

On returning to Culdrose from Navy Days, the same crew plucked a teenager from rocks at the bottom of cliffs at Chapel Point, near Mevagissey, after he was cut off by the incoming tide. The young man, apparently none the worse for his experience, was handed over to a Coastguard cliff rescue team at the top of the cliffs.