Friday 13 February 2009

Tower

I've just had this short YouTube clip brought to my attention. It shows Tower Lifeboat conducting a 'textbook' rescue of a swimmer in the water. You can't see her face but I got a definite sense that she was somewhat relieved! Well done guys (and girls). I say girls because good friend of Swanage crew, Jen Court, previously one of the trainers at the Lifeboat College, is now one of the full time crew at the station. I wonder is she was involved in this rescue?



Incidentally, Tower and the other Thames lifeboat stations (except Teddington), are unique among RNLI stations in that they have a greater number of full-time crew than normal. This is because they have a far shorter response time (90 seconds) due to the majority of their shouts involving people in the water. Thus their station is fully manned 24 hours a day 7 days a week with one full time crewmember and two volunteers.

5 comments:

Crosshaven Lifeboat said...

very interesting vid - however do you get a sense that a) they missed the first approach and b) had they had a crewmember in a drysuit they could have deployed with a safety line to compensate for this approach? Nonetheless a good save.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Jen was driving, and yes Crosshaven is correct, the clip has been edited as it took a while to get alongside! Driving lessons me feel! BUt a good job well done.

lifeboatjohn said...

You're quite right, it certainly looks as if the Helm misses on the first approach. It looks to me as if the first approach is with the tidal flow...perhaps this is why? Nevertheless, job done quickly and relatively efficiently, I'm not going to criticise as I know very well how hard it can be!

Crosshaven Lifeboat said...

Absolutely - as someone once said it doesnt really matter how you rescue them as long as you do! I was just interested in the difference in methods (drysuit & swim line) between Thames & A75 on the coast.

John - we usually ignore current at sea on the 75 as it should have a similar effect on both cas & lb - however, I suspect that might not be the case with the speed of the Thames? And them buggers can cheat by going sideways too (just saw a bit of that Jen!)

Safe lifeboating

Crosser.

Anonymous said...

Of course the clip has been edited as the rnli press centre requires only 30 second clps as they're e-mailable, and cutting out the bad bits!
What it doesn't show is the collision with a big passenger vessel on the way back to station as someone wasn't looking where they were going and freaked out. The lifeboat was close to being T boned and run over. I don't know Jen, but hear she'd never driven a boat before she got to Tower. Experience counts for alot!