A CAR got stuck in the water just off Barry at the end of last week.

Barry Dock RNLI's lifeboat was paged at 4.43pm on Thursday (May 25) to the report of a car in the water at the Old Harbour in Barry, just a short distance from Barry Dock Lifeboat Station.

The Barry Dock RNLI volunteers launched both their Trent class all-weather lifeboat the Inner Wheel II, as well as their boarding boat, a fully equipped D class inshore lifeboat which can also be used as an extra asset for some rescues, and quickly made their way around to the Old Harbour.

Once they arrived on scene, they found a car that had been used to launch a small motor boat from the slipway, and had been left at the bottom of the slip whilst its owners were out on their pleasure boat

The owners were not familiar with the area that they had launched from and had not realised that with the Bristol Channel's large tidal range, much of the slipway would be soon underwater. Their car had subsequently been left partially submerged.

The Barry Dock RNLI volunteers stood by for a while to assess the situation and after seeing that no one was in any danger, they returned to station shortly after.

Speaking after the shout, volunteer coxswain Marc Gibbons warned of the dangers of tides.

"The Bristol Channel has some of the highest tidal ranges in the world, and they can even catch out experienced seamen," he said.

"It's really important that when you're planning a trip, you should check what time the tides are, how big they are and also to check charts for the area so that you know which areas will dry out and which ones will be left underwater."