A medical evacuation from a French trawler was just one of five shouts in three for volunteer crew-members of Falmouth RNLI last week.

The all weather lifeboat was called at around 9.15am on Thursday to evacuate a fisherman with a fractured arm from the 23 metre fishing boat Yannick which was 11 miles east-north-east from Zone Point.

The two boats met around six and a half miles from the point, and two RNLI crew went aboard the trawler to check the casualty, before bandaging him and transferring him to the lifeboat by stretcher.

An RNLI spokesperson said: "The fisherman’s arm had been broken when it had been hit by a rope from the winch. No one on board the trawler spoke any English so the skills of one of the lifeboat crew who had recently completed a French course proved very useful."

There were four shouts for the inshore lifeboat last week, starting with two people cut off by the tide on Castle Beach at around 4.30pm on Tuesday. By the time the crew arrived the pair had managed to swim back to the beach, but the RNLI said the person who raised the alarm was right to do so.

Just after midnight on Wednesday morning the inshore lifeboat was launched to help three people adrift in a 3m dinghy in the Penryn River, after who had been returning to Flushing from Falmouth after a night out when their outboard engine had failed. After attempting to row across, the lifeboat arrived and towed them home.

Just after 4pm on Wednesday the boat was called to the River Fal north of the King Harry Ferry following reports of a dog stuck in the mud, but while still en route the coastguard confirmed that the animal had made it ashore and the crew returned to Falmouth.

Then on Thursday Falmouth Coastguard called at around 11.30am to ask the lifeboat to investigate an unmanned inflatable dinghy off Pill Creek in the Carrick Roads, but on arrival the boat's owner approached the crew, explaining he had moored the inflatable while teaching a sailing lesson.