TRIBUTES HAVE been paid to Royal National Lifeboat Institution Dún Laoghaire coxswain Ken Robertson, who has retired after 25 years of service.
Mr Robertson, who runs a newsagent’s shop on Marine Road in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, was appointed second in 1986 and coxswain in 1989. He will be succeeded by Mark McGibney.
Among his many notable call-outs was the rescue of a swimmer in Killiney Bay who was saved just yards from a rocky shoreline in gale-force winds in 2007. One of the longest calls lasted 14 hours, after four sailors died when their yacht, Debonair, collided with a ship close to Dublin port in 2001.
RNLI Dún Laoghaire lifeboat operations manager Stephen Wynne said Mr Robertson and his crew had saved “dozens of lives and rescued hundreds more”.
He noted that Mr Robertson’s wife, Margaret, had always been “fully supportive in spite of the disruption to normal family life that voluntary lifeboat service brings”.
