Suprise visit

I wasn't really expecting to take the boat out as Cox'n last night but somehow that's what happened. With little warning I found myself out there with a solid crew but not the most exciting plans of what to do. Imagine my delight then, when I heard over the radio one of our local Coastguard helicopters (Coastguard Helicopter 104, from Solent) calling to tell Deasy (navigator for the evening) that they were in the area and would like to spend some time exercising with us! Excellent...

So, out of the sunset they came, all red, white and exciting!

Their winchman, a nice bloke, came down on the winchwire and gave us a good briefing of what to expect.

All of us were surprised at the amount of spray which gets flung around by this new helicopter compared to the old 'Whiskey Bravo'.

This shot in particular shows vividly the cramped conditions on the afterdeck of a Mersey class lifeboat during helicopter operations.

Then after a few turns with the ILB they were off and heading for home...as were we. To arrive back for a quick washdown before a meeting about this year's lifeboat week.

Happy days!!