Please mind the gap

It was another great exercise last night, in the wheelhouse Deasy and Dave grappled with the new Foruno plotter. Meanwhile, up on deck, Shi, Kev and myself anchored the boat and paddled ashore in the x boat for a bit of landing practise. We used the ILB as our method of escape and the video shows a skillful bit of boathandling from Andy Lyons assisted by useful 'spotting' from Becky.

I'm still not sure what martin and Steve spent the evening doing!

Kev

...was the lucky one who had a ride in the helicopter on Wednesday. It was a short ride but, judging by the grin on his face, a great deal of fun!

On the rather cramped afterdeck of the Mersey the winchman, Kev and Tom (who was tending the high-line) prepared for the lift.

It struck me that this new helicopter hovers much lover than the old Whiskey Bravo so the actual trip us was very short.

Once onboard it was a quick trip round the bay then back into formation on us ready for a lower back down.

Once again, the spray flew and made photographic conditions somewhat testing for Sam who was wielding my camera.

Stretched ILB

For some reason my waterproof camera was not behaving last night and the flash kept on deciding not to work. Consequently some of the photos were slightly odd. That said, I quite liked this one of the ILB launching. It looks fast and colourful and somehow exciting.

We've still got 'Fishermen's Friend' at the moment. Dave nipped over to Poole to trial our boat last week and found it still losing coolant from the engine. Unfortunately it is now going to have to have the cylinder head removed so it will be some time longer before we get her back.

The ILB crew were having some troubles last night too with them finding it hard to select gears on the engine. When this was investigated, it was hard to pinpoint the problem, thought it was narrowed down to the gearbox rather than the linkage. The Coastguard were informed and we were briefly off-service while a replacement gearbox was dispatched from Poole and fitted by Kev.

Hood off and lower leg removed the ILB looked strangely impotent.

Christmas lights tour

No doubt each family has it's own Christmas traditions. One of ours is that, on or around my birthday, we take a drive around the town, after dark, to get a good look at all of the Christmas lights.

We did this last night and some were truly spectacular. The lifeboating link? Well, one of the houses visited belongs to our very own Kev and was the winner of our 'highly commended semi-detached category'.

Our route takes in Corfe Castle, Kingston (too posh for Christmas lights), Worth (Compact Farm gets a mention for best decorated roof), Langton and of course Swanage.

This house, towards the bottom of Langton, is a perennial winner of the 'best decorated detached property' division and this year also came away with the 'Best in Show' award too.

Kev's, and his next door neighbours, were close runners up overall and won the 'best decorated garden building' award for their efforts with the caravan, well done lads!

And finally, the 'best dressed street' went to Hoburn Road with this bungalow being a particular beauty.

Where would we be without traditions hey?

EffSeaBeeToo

The exercise was a cold one last night but this did not prevent us from being very productive. We had a couple of observers along for the trip, one whom we already knew from last month. Pretty frequently we are asked to take people out to sea with us in order to help them become acquainted with what lifeboat crews do in real life. Often they are new staff who have joined the institution and are working in an area where they are required to either talk with authority about what we do, or need to be able to empathise with the job that we do and the conditions that we work in. In Geraldine's case it's undoubtedly a bit of both.

Unfortunately on this occasion I had little chance to chat with Geraldine and John because no sooner had we launched and got started on our exercise than we sighted a flare and went to investigate, (don't worry Gloria...all part of the exercise)!

Coming alongside what appeared to be another lifeboat it quickly became apparent that they had had some sort of dramatic incident and required urgent assistance. I went aboard initially to assess how many casualties there were. As is often the case in these scenarios, there was a man overboard (immediately ties up one boat searching and limits options for casualty evacuation). There was also a seriously injured man who had fallen through a hatch (although it was difficult to access him initially and make a full assessment, the mechanism of injury led me to expect a spinal injury, possibly a break and likely internal injuries). There was the usual 'red-herring' of someone panicking with sea-sickness and a quiet one who appeared shocked. Plenty to keep us busy!

I made the decision to act as the comms person and requested as many first aiders as were available to come and deal with the casualties. Very soon Kev, John, Daz and Nick were onboard and completing their full assessments on the casualties. Not surprisingly the fellow who had fallen began to deteriorate with increasing 'Capillary refill' and reducing breathing rate. Quite rightly Kev and John assessed him as having an internal bleed and flagged him up a priority 1 for immediate evacuation.

In a very short space of time the man-overboard had been found, all casualties dealt with and the stricken vessel taken in tow back to the station. After a quick de-brief and not so quick crew-meeting it was time for a pint in the Red Lion then home to bed.

All good.

It's all bit of a blur

Every now and then I get a picture which wasn't meant to happen but for whatever reason I really like it. This is one which the camera decided to take itself during one Sunday exercise. Despite the fact that the camera was swinging from it's cord attached to my wrist, it still seems to have captured something which is discernibly a lifeboat image.

It may be a busy week this week. The mechanics are meeting this evening to do the routine lifejacket servicing. There is an exercise on Wednesday evening. Kev is ILB duty helm for the week and the DLA is Linda. Let's have a quiet one...

Busy exercise (and sorry for the delay!)

Right...I'm feeling a little better now so here are a few more details from the weekend exercise.

In a sense Sunday's exercise was a big one for me. Since becoming one of the Stations Deputy Second Coxswains a number of years ago I have spent a lot of time acting as Second Coxswain for the other three (Martin, Rob and Dave) but very little time taking complete command of the lifeboat as Coxswain. So on Sunday I took the boat out for an exercise with my own crew...the sort of crew I would have is Martin, Rob and Dave were absent.

My intention was to give the engines a run, get Gav doing a little navigating and spend a bit of time running Paul E and Kev through a couple of seamanship evolutions with them acting as my Second Coxswains. Of course it didn't turn out like that. Events and colleagues conspired to scupper my plan.


Midway through out little Navigation exercise I overheard Deasy on the ILB talking to Portland about a kayaker which they had spotted in difficulty. It was agreed that they would take the kayaker onboard and head back towards Swanage along with his Kayak. After a brief discussion it was agreed that we would head off to meet them and take either the kayak or the Kayaker onboard. As it turned out we did both as the fellow was a bit cold from his swim.


Having practised this sort of thing last year the recovery of the kayak went smoothly and it was soon emptied of water. In short order it was stowed on the side deck and we returned to the slipway to land both the vessel and the casualty.


We then headed out to continue our exercise. And it was a busy day for kayakers in the bay. This bunch seemed well organised and had the added benefit of safety in numbers.


No sooner had we resumed our planned exercise than we had a 'For Exercise' shout from Portland Coastguard. They had had a report of an explosion on a fishing vessel 1/2 a mile SE of Peveril point. Of course we made best speed towards the casualty and dealt with what we found (burnt crewman, one crewman missing presumed overboard and a disabled boat). Kev and James boarded the boat to administer first aid. We did a quick search and found the casualty in the water, we then brought the casualty onboard the ALB before rigging up a tow to bring the casualty vessel home.

And it mostly went well and smoothly. So...a big thanks to Rob and Dave for arranging that little beauty for us!

Ballard Point

Lies directly to the north of our Lifeboat station. At about 7.40 last night a rambler fell a small distance onto the rocks there and fell unconscious. The Coastguard rescue team were sent to locate him and this they did with the assistance of the Swanage Sea Rowing Club gig which was over there a the time. It was decided that a lifeboat would be of assistance so we were paged and arrived on-scene pretty quickly. First Aid was rendered and the patient prepared for a Helicopter lift. Once aboard the helicopter he was taken directly to Dorchester A&E where he had a brain scan and was declared fine.

Crew on the ILB in this occasion were Kev, Dan and Oli. It was reported in the Bournemouth Echo this morning.

Dexter

On the whole I try not to mention casualties by name so as not to embarass them. On this occasion it probably doesn't matter if I do. Shortly after 1 this afternoon the ILB was asked to launch by Portland to retrieve a dog (Dexter)which had fallen down the cliff near Old Harry. As is so often the case he was basically fine. In fact, so fine that he got up and swam out to the ILB! If only people bounced as well. Kev, Oli and Ant were back on the slip shortly after they handed Dexter over to his relieved owners at Middle Beach in Studland.

Busy Wednesday

One way or another yesterday was busy.

Firstly at about 2 in the afternoon Portland Coastguard paged the DLA and asked for the ALB to be launched to a 45 foot yacht with 2 people aboard. It was becalmed about 2 miles South of Anvil Point with a rope round its prop.

The Mersey launched 12 mins later and was soon alongside the yacht. A towline was passed across and after checking that there was no other damage the yacht was towed back to Swanage and was secured to the Lifeboat mooring in Swanage Bay.
Later in the early evening local diver, Robin Plowman, went out to the yacht and cleared the obstruction allowing the vessel to continue her passage today.

Just as the evenings exercise was about to commence at 7, Martin sprung a dramatic multi casualty Medical Exercise on the crew. Paul Savage had provided the casualty scenarios and various friends acted as the casulties. Observing was a Coastguard colleague who is also an ambulance paramedic.

Here Kev deals with a young man who has fallen, was unresponsive and had a suspected spinal injury and significant bruising.....certainly 'Big Sick'.

Gav was dealing with a lady who had some nasty puncture wounds, looked a real mess but was in reality only 'Little Sick'. Gav treated what he could and then stayed with her providing comfort and reassurance. Alltogether, a very well conducted exercise.

Immediately afterwards both boats went to sea on exercise and completed various evolutions in the bay. The ALB took an inexperienced crew out; Jo had a first go at using the Radar under Dave's supervision, Gav navigated, Matt was Mechanic and Tom took on the role of second Cox on deck. A good learning experience for all.

On completion a quick de-brief then down to the Ship for the analysis!

A good servicing

Lifejackets are probably the most important piece of PPE (personal protective equipment) that we have. We have 22 in total, 11 ALB and 11 ILB. Both jackets are made by Crewsaver to the RNLI's spec. The ALB jacket has no natural buoyancy but has 2 inflatable bladders, 1 that fires automatically if the wearer enters the water, the other is fired manually to give extra buoyancy to support another person or help if you're going to be in the water for any length of time. The ILB jacket has built in foam buoyancy and a single manually activated bladder to provide extra support. They are exchanged annually, usually towards the end of February for our station, but we are required to service them every 3 months to ensure that everything is as it should be. If a jacket is used in anger, ie inflated, then it must be serviced before it is made available to the crew again. Monday night is the night that myself, Paul, Skid, Kev and a few others, Mr B, Matt and Ollie turned up tonight, go to the station to do routine maintenance. Given the cold North Easterly wind that was whistling through the station being upstairs in the crew room seemed like an excellent idea.

We usually start with the ALB jackets as they're the most time consuming, complicated and awkward to repack. The first thing to do is to remove the 2 CO2 gas cylinders and inflate the jacket using the oral inflation tubes.

With the jacket inflated as hard as you can get it (this shows the smokers versus the non-smokers!) you can then start to check the webbing straps, the light, the flares, lifeline and the general condition of the material. After about 10 or 15 mins its pretty obvious whether the jacket is losing air or not, if all's well then all the air is let out the CO2 cylinders are re-fitted (failing to do this, packing the jacket away and then finding them on the table where you left them is called 'Doing a Shi' due to the number times that he manages to do this!). Once all the air is expelled and with a bit of careful folding the jacket is back to a usuable state. The servicing log is then signed along with the label on the jacket itself.

Once all the ALB jackets are done its time to move onto the ILB jackets. These are split up slightly as there are 3 that are used just for the ALB slip the only difference is that they don't have the 2 day/night flares fitted. The jackets are serviced in the same way but as they have foam buoyancy there is only 1 inflatable bladder to inflate . . that's good as some people are getting a little out of breath by now!

Once again you need to check the straps, light, lifeline and flares (if fitted). Once you're happy the air can be let out, the gas bottle re-fitted and the jacket packed away, again the servicing log has to be signed along with the label on the jacket. Its always interesting to see where some of these jackets have been and wonder what sort of shouts they've been out on before we got them.


Luckily tonight we didn't find too much wrong, just a cracked flare cap and a light that wouldn't turn off after testing. These were easily rectified and with the extra help that we had tonight all the jackets were done in just under 90 mins, not too bad at all. With that done and no more working Monday evenings this year (I won't make them do Xmas eve and New Year's eve!) we retired to the East Bar.

What's a guy like you, doing in a place like this?

The question that I most frequently get asked about the lifeboat is:

"What made you want to join the crew?"

My reason for joining was that I was inspired by the work that the lifeboat crews do, I love and respect the sea, but I'm not afraid of it. I guess I wanted to offer what I could.

Everyone has different reasons for joining, I questioned a few of the guys and here are their reasons in their own words:

Dave "My Dad was on the crew and he asked me if I wanted to join, the station was just about to get its first D class, so they needed a few extra crew, I was one of eight new crew that joined at the time. "

Matt "My Dad was a member of the crew when I was born, I was christened on the old lifeboat the Rother with my cousins James and Gary, I basically grew up at the boat house.. I guess it was inevitable."

Kev "I used to be a volunteer lifeguard at Studland beach, one day we had a serious incident, the lifeboat, coastguard and helicopter were all involved. After that I had a chat with one of the lifeboat team who said I'd make a good crew member and that's what made me decide to join."

Steve "I had a chat with with one of the DLAs and he asked me whether my wife would be interested in joining the crew, I said that she might be but i wasn't sure, I told them that I was definitely interested in joining the crew myself." (Steve's wife decided not to join the crew)

Ollie "My dad was rescued by the lifeboat when he was out sailing and his mast snapped. I go sailing a lot and i know that if I got into trouble I'd want someone to rescue me, so I decided I'd do my bit for others who might find themselves in a tricky situation."

So there you have it a quick insight.....We all come from different walks of life but the lifeboat brings us together. It is my opinion that being involved with the lifeboat is something that you do because it is part of you, you can't force it if it's not.

Operations meeting

Every few months the operations committee of the station come together to discuss operational matters. I am not present at these meetings, so cannot tell you what happens in the inner sanctum, however, we as a crew soon know the outcome as there is generally a crew meeting some time in the following week.Tonight God has called his men together. And they will be locked in heated discussion about what's going right and what isn't. Neil, Martin, Rob, Dave, Kev and Steve will spend a not inconsiderable amount of time putting our lifeboating world to rights..................tomorrow night, at the next crew meeting, no doubt we will be told not to speed through the car park.

Doggie lovers

We are delighted that the unfortunate mut which we rescued yesterday has made a full recovery and is fine. It's important to us you see. We love dogs. Of course Kev is especially pleased (I think he formed a particularly close emotional attachment to the hound!)

You ain't nothin but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time.
You ain't nothin but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time.
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine.
(Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller)

Learning the Ropes

Today Kev and I went over to the RNLI HQ in Poole, to crew for a staff induction day. Every now and and then we are called upon to assist on such occasions as it helps new staff to gain an understanding of what the organisation is all about.



Today was especially interesting because the Severn Lifeboat that we were on, was being used to assist in the training of Atlantic crew.

The trainers took the opportunity to pull alongside our vessel and transfer crew, a useful exercise for situations when you need to assist moving vessels.

Kev is truly committed to the cause, he even collected a few phone numbers so that he could offer his assistance in answering any difficult questions that the new staff came up with later on in the day!

Bank Holiday

It has been a busy bank holiday for lifeboat stations in the South West with launches at Exmouth, Torbay and St Ives to name but a few. The weather in Swanage has been rather wild, talking to the a few of the crew I know that they have been thinking about the changing weather and the restlessness of the sea. Some of the crew have taken the opportunity to go away for the bank holiday, those of us that are left are trying to keep as available as possible to ensure that that there are enough of us to man the boats, should we get the call.

Paul, Skid, Steve, Kevin, Tom, Gav, Dan and John Deas are all starting a two week radar and navigation course tonight which will take place in Swanage in one of the RNLI's mobile training units. The course is fairly intense and consists of seven three hour training sessions, but is an essential part of their crew training. We wish them luck!

Mechanical Monday

Each Monday evening all of our crew who are trained as mechanics on either the ILB or the ALB spend a few hours at the Boathouse working through some planned or routine maintenance. This involves pumping up the ILB, ensuring the fuel tanks are topped off, cleaning, repairing and of course, doing any jobs which Dave is not able to complete during the week due to only having two pairs of hands. Last night was especially busy as D651, the trials ILB, had also been out to sea.Here the ILB mechanics are busy fettling. Jon is lubing the engine and changing the fuel filter, Becky checks the first aid kit, Paul B and Kev are sorting the ropes in stowages and Oli is checking the Oxygen bottle and masks.Meanwhile on the Mersey Dave and Paul E have found a defect from the re-fit, one of the engine room bilge sensors has fallen apart due to a cracked length of pipe. Not a show stopper as there are several more bilge sensors in the space but still needs sorting soon.

Afterwards it was a quick pint and pack of crisps in the East bar.........