Operation number 429. Polish SAR has already passed its whole 2025 total, with three months of the year still to go

An ordinary operation, an extraordinary number

The intervention itself was among the most common in the service's statistics. A yacht with a disabled engine, unable to return to port on its own, needed a tow. Two units were assigned: the fast rescue boat R102 and the vessel Monsun, which earlier this season ran a multi-day operation on a yacht aground near Ulinia.

It is events like these, rather than spectacular disasters, that make up the annual tally. Propulsion failures, groundings, craft blown offshore, missing kayakers and board users, medical calls from ships. Each means putting to sea, often in conditions in which nobody else does.

Why the numbers keep rising

The growth in operations has several overlapping causes. The sailing and motorboating season is getting longer, and more leisure craft are on the Baltic, many in the hands of people with limited experience. Traffic linked to the construction of offshore wind farms and the servicing of infrastructure is increasing. More people take up water sports close to shore, where an offshore wind can carry them out within minutes.

Reporting has changed too. A mobile phone in every pocket means incidents are known about sooner and more often, and the threshold at which someone calls for help is lower than a decade ago.

The result is that a service with a fixed headcount and a set number of units handles more calls every year.

Łeba at full stretch

The Łeba station is among the busiest on the coast this season. In August its crews and Monsun ran a multi-day operation on a motor yacht aground, refloated with the help of the rescue vessel Orkan from Ustka and excavator operators. Days before operation 429 the station hosted rescuers from France, Finland, Estonia, Iceland and Norway under an IMRF exchange and trained with them in searching for people in the water.

The same Monsun that towed a yacht on 27 September is now in the area where the Maritime Office in Słupsk is dealing with beaches polluted by a petroleum substance. Combating pollution at sea is among the service's tasks, so its units may be needed for two entirely different jobs at once.

New vessels on the way

The record pace comes as the service renews its fleet. In 2025 it signed a contract with the Finnish yard Kewatec AluBoat for six new rescue units, and further vessels, Mistral and Powiew, are under construction in a project co-financed by the EU transport projects centre CUPT.

New equipment will shorten response times and widen the conditions in which rescuers can operate. It will not change one thing: the number of operations is rising faster than the number of people who carry them out. If the record falls, it will be down to the same crews who worked the previous one.