Do you want to come?

Anonymous asked this question:

How do you choose which crew to take on each shout if more than needed turn up at the boathouse? Is it down to experience or a mix of the novices and the hardened crew?

Now there's a question! I think that it is one of those things which each station does differently and each method has it's advantages. For example:

One station I know in the north of the country runs a first come first served type system, as crew arrive they collect a tally from next to the door and the first 5 (plus mechanic and Cox'n) go on the shout. The problems with this are that you might end up with an experienced crew on a 'big' shout, it encourages speeding, the same people might always go because they live close or work close and it also encourages competitiveness amongst the crew.

Another station I know runs a sort of 'squash ladder' type arrangement. Once a crew member has done a shout they go to the bottom of the list and work their way up again. Scrupulously fair but again might mean that the boat might go with a poorly experienced crew.

I've even heard of stations which run a sort of on duty crew. For a week at a time they have a nominated crew and they are the guys who respond initially if there is a shout. Good, but again, you end up spreading your experience thinly and it does require crew to live and work nearby.

And us? Well, we run two systems, one for the ILB and one for the ALB.

On the ILB it is a case of first come first served, that is, the first helmsman through the door commands the boat and then the next two crew (or helmsmen) go too. The Helmsman has a right of veto though, so if there is a particular need for experience or skill he can stand crew down and nominate others.

On the ALB we use the crew list as our guide. This list is in order of experience and time on the crew. The top 6 (Cox'n, 2nd Cox'n, Mechanic, Deputy 2nd Cox'n and numbers 5 & 6) automatically climb onto the boat if they are there. Then, depending on whether any of them haven't arrived, what type of shout it is, experience of the remaining crew, who's been on a shout recently and whether he can remember their names, the Cox'n will fill up the remaining spaces from those stood at the bottom of the stairs. And generally this works well. It means that the first principle is that the boat will go with the most experienced crew. It means everyone gets a few shouts each season. It also means that the Cox'n may bring on less experienced crew over time. Of course, as with the other methods, it's not without flaws...life's not perfect, we can accept that!

Thomas Gray Silver medal

Remember our First Aid instructor, Paul Savage? Well, it turns out that he ought now to be known as 'the award winning First Aid instructor' - Paul Savage!

Paul's new style course has now been rolled out to other crews around the coast and is also being used on the (also awards winning) Sea-Survival course. By all accounts it is being very well received by those who attend (three of our crew; Daz, Sam and Ty were on the course last week).

Well done Paul on your Silver medal, no doubt there was also a cash prize which you will be sharing with your erstwhile guinea-pigs in due course?!

I seem to be having problems with photos today so I'll try again later.

We've got the decorators in

Our periodic boathouse upkeep and maintenance is now underway. We have a team of lads with us for about 4 weeks and they will mainly be repainting and touching up everything which is painted or varnished. At the moment the boathouse resembles a war zone with scaffolding, paint pots, ladders, tools, filler and undercoat everywhere. No doubt in time it will begin to look shiny and new again!

In the meantime we are treading carefully and taking care not to touch anything for fear of getting covered in paint.

Farewell trusty companion

After something like 9 years of trusty service at our sides, the life of our old pagers has come to an end. I believe that they had become obsolete, and thus, it was no longer possible to service them when they became damaged. For some time trials have been conducted to find a replacement. Finally, last night, our new pagers were revealed. And darned smart they are too. No doubt in time we will learn what all the buttons and fancy features do. For the meantime lets just hope that they beep when needed.

Doing a Wilson Pickett

So Richard also asked how hard it is to get out of bed in the early hours of a dark and cold winter's night. Not surprisingly it is a bit of a shock. One moment you are cuddled up safe and warm in the lee of bum island...the next you are struggling into reluctant clothing, trying not to wake everyone, find the car keys, find the car, go back and get the correct keys for that car etc, etc, etc. No doubt there are some for whom there is a temptation to stay there in bed and silence the pager. However, I think we all resist that temptation. Needless to say, it is generally on these sort of shouts where our services are most urgently required.

By the way. The photo is of B on an evening exercise. Imagine how rough he looks at 'oh my God it's early' o'clock!

Cropped

Thanks to Richard Bell for these questions:

Whats the weirdest situation/place that your pager has gone off (that's publishable)? How difficult is it to get up and out of bed in the early hours on a winters day?

Taking one at a time:

Probably the funniest time that my pager has gone off was mid haircut. At the time I had longer hair up top and cropped hair on the sides. My hairdresser had just cropped the sides very short as my pager went off. I ran out the door looking like some dodgy 1980's pop star with a really nasty step in my hair. I then spent about 4hours sat on the casualty vessel while we towed it getting some very funny looks. Annoyingly it was some days before I managed to go back and get the job finished!

Then there was the time I was 3/4 of the way through packing my weekly shopping at the till in the Co-Op. The checkout staff wasn't particularly impressed when I walked out leaving it all there for them to deal with.

There was also the occasion when I had a queue of a dozen parents waiting to see me at a parents evening at school. Not funny more awkward...

Bravo Zulu...

This message has just been left in the guestbook section of our website. I've said it before, we pretty rarely receive thanks like this but it is hugely appreciated when we do.

Message: Message to Gavin and the Crew who rescued us today off Harry Rocks in our 29ft Cruiser Esprit.

Guys just to say a huge thank you - we have just arrived home all safe and sound thanks to you. Dad, Harry (aged 79) has been released from hospital this evening having undergone many tests. Nothing conclusive except an irregular heartbeat which will be monitored together with his recently changed medication being looked into as they feel this could have been the cause of his illness today.

We feel totally indebted to you guys - you do an amazing job and cannot speak highly enough of what you did for us today. Having been boating in excess of 10 years we would never have expected to have to use your services -you were great.

We would like to make a donation to the RNLI and would appreciate you letting us know how to do so.

Thanks again - cannot stop saying thank you - it must also be mentioned that John the Operator was amazing he kept us in control of the situation until you arrived and gave us huge confidence for the safety of all.

Cheers again guys - sorry Gavin if we ruined your lunch!! not sure this is what we interrupted but if it was we owe you one.

Karen & Gary

By the way...I happen to know that it wasn't his lunch which Gav had interrupted!!

Mixed blessing

So the certificates for our recent first aid course arrived last week. Very exciting they are to. The only problem...they have John Deas' face on them!

Paul, if you'd only asked I have loads of much better photos from the course!

Coastal passage making

isn't always as straight forwards as it seems. Yesterday the ALB was called upon to assist a 28’ motor cruiser with 5 persons on board including an 89 year old man who had fallen and was suffering from seasickness. Portland were worried about the man’s condition and weren't able to get a clear position from the boat’s crew (possibly near Old Harry). They requested Swanage Coastguard, Rescue Helicopter 106 and Swanage Lifeboat to attend. Swanage Coastguard were soon at Old Harry and confirmed that a boat the Lifeboat was tracking on radar matched the vessel’s description.

Once alongside, Gav was put onboard to assess the man’s condition. After a comprehensive assessment he concluded that the best thing was for the man to remain on board and get picked up by paramedics at Sandbanks. Both boats set off via the East Looe channel and arrived at the landing steps about 20 minutes after first arriving on scene. The man was transferred to a waiting ambulance along with one of the motor boats crew. The remaining crew continued their passage and the ALB was released to return to station.

Thanks to the station website for most of the details here

Busy, busy

Andy asked the question:

How about where we fitted in in the statistics of launches/rescues for the first 6 months of the year compared with other stations around the country?

Well, to quote the RNLI: The statistics show that RNLI lifeboats rescued 630 people in the first six months of 2008, nine more than in the same period of 2007 while RNLI lifeguards went to the aid of 1,906 people, up over 400 from a year earlier. The busiest lifeboat station in the south west was Poole in Dorset and the next five busiest were all lifeboats based in Devon and Cornwall (Exmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, Torbay and Appledore). In total RNLI lifeboats in the south west launched 675 times from January 1 to June 30 this year, little changed from 655 launches in the same period last year. Thanks Tamsin and Amy for that!

So where did we fit in? Well, this year we were 9th out of 35 stations for the period January to June with 29 launches in total. There were 16 ALB shouts and 13 ILB shouts with a total of 22 people rescued. In the same period in the previous year we were 11th with 25 shouts and again 22 people rescued. So we are busy but much less busy that some!

Slightly random photo of one of our local landmarks...anyone know where it is and anything of its history?

Heads

Regular reader Joan asked the question:

Hi John
2 questions, Is there a loo on the ALB?, and because you have advanced first aid skills, do they call on you at school to deal with incidents?
all the best to you and all the crew
Joan

The answer, on our class of lifeboat is that there are no 'Heads'. We operate a 'Bucket 'n' chuck it' system, which, most of the time works perfectly well. Of course, in very rough conditions or where we have been out for a very long time it can become a pretty unpleasant and messy business. Hand washing facilities are also somewhat lacking!

On larger ALBs (Severn, Tamar and Trent) there is a dedicated Heads and crews are treated to a far higher level of pampering and comfort. Perhaps our slogan should be, 'Real Lifeboatmen do it in a bucket on a Mersey'?!

Joan, thanks for the question...I'll come back to the second one later.

Lazy Sunday

Oops, I thought I had posted these yesterday evening...turns out I hadn't!



Tom and I spent the wee early hours hauling a few of his new pots from his new inshore fishing boat.

As we came ashore we were snapped by Mark Rainsley.

After tea and bacon sarnies at ours he headed out to take some snaps of the ALB on exercise.



Even in a reasonably moderate sea the ALB looked pretty impressive and Mark's photos do it full justice.



Here she is mid turn with a few crew on the afterdeck.

Younger brother

Inexplicably I arrived home this evening to find the latest Land Rover Defender brochure waiting for me on the doormat. Naturally, as a poor teacher, I find myself in no position to buy one of these things (my own Landy will be 33 this year) however, I couldn't resist a quick browse.

And I have to say, the overall quality of the presentation was excellent, but best of all was this shot on page 10. It shows a Defender 110 in the process of launching not just any ILB but the younger brother of our boat the 'Jack Cleare' (D-613).

Now I suspect that the photo is purely a publicity shot and D-614 isn't an actual lifeboat on station but rather a relief lifeboat. Indeed, the Land Rover shown isn't an RNLI one...it is missing the white roof, blue lights in the grill, steel wheels and of course all of the stickering. As ever,I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong in this web of assumptions.

Just talk...

Here's a chance for you to just talk. Not about something I've written just about things that you'd like to know. The Inshore Lifeboat First Aid kit, perhaps. How to go about visiting the boathouse, if you like. Whatever, just ask by leaving a comment.

To be honest I'm sometimes struggling to remember exactly what I have and haven't written about in the past so feel that there may well be large gaps in what I have told you about our boats and crew. So, feel free to: ask questions, answer questions or make comments.

Somebody hurry up and be the first to say or ask something!

Let's talk. Let's have fun. Let's discuss out how to save lives at sea....

Virtually life

This mornings 'pause for thought' on radio 2 touched on the theme of our virtual lives and questioned whether we were in danger of putting too much store in our virtual 'on-line' lives at the expense of our very real 'off-line' lives. Of course the answer is all in balance...gaining a sufficiency but knowing when to stop. Like most things in life I guess?

Coincidentally I received an e-mail this morning from Nigel Saxon (e-media manager for the RNLI) confirming that it was indeed Rob driving the Tamar in the YouTube clip yesterday and pointing out that there are many more online with our crew taking starring roles! Try this one:



He also let me know that he is working on completing a new RNLI application for Facebook. If I remember rightly the idea is that you create a virtual crew using your Facebook friends. It sounds very exciting and will no doubt be a great way of engaging with young people. More details when Nigel lets me have them...

Sorry

it's been a bit quite around here recently. It's not even as if nothing has been happening, it's just I've been busy here at work (yeah OK...you can stop laughing now)!

Anyway, I just spotted this on the official RNLI youtube channel and couldn't help spotting what looked like Rob driving the Tamar. Does anyone know if it was him?



I still love the song and am very impressed with Seth for giving up so much of his time and energy for the RNLI

County flag

Dorset now has it's own county flag. Martin is a keen supporter of this......I wonder if we will soon be flying one on the boat? What are your thoughts on this? Let us know please....

More information on the flag can be found here.

Lieutenant Dan

Apparently there are Dolphins in the area at the moment.

Tom spotted them in Durlston Bay on Saturday afternoon and so John & Becky and Liz and the girls and I went round in the boats to see if we could find them. Naturally, as soon as we turned up they all disappeared and there was nothing to be seen.

John sat up on his wakeboarding tower looking not unlike Lieutenant Dan Taylor in Forest Gump (except with legs)!

(Thanks to Becky for the photo)

As promised...

here are some photos from the exercise on Sunday.

Martin decided to take charge and teach Sam how to set up the tow. It felt a bit like I was doing a classroom observation...I have to say, he was very good!

Meanwhile on the rowing club pontoon Dave was teaching Andy how to set up a bridle to spread th load on a casualty vessel.

Almost as we finished and handed the pontoon over to the rowing club we got tasked by Portland to go and pick up a dinghy which had been sighted by the Barfleur drifting about 7 miles SE of Peveril point. On arrival Rob jumped onboard to have a quick once over and check that it was OK to be towed.

I'm sure it's a very useful dinghy Geoff but Rob was pretty keen to get off!

Once we were about 1/2 way back we handed the tow over to the ILB so that we could carry on with our mornings activities.

Good exercise

Yesterday morning both boats were at sea. Crew were pretty few and far between as it was Gav's birthday and everyone was off paintballing somewhere.

Those of us left had a sound exercise. With two probationers (Andy and Sam) along, we focused on the real basics of rigging up a tow. For example; how to make a rope off on the samson post, how to keep the rope in the water clear of the props, and how to surge the rope without loosing fingers. This all went well and we spent some time towing the rowing club pontoon about the bay. Just as we were finishing this we were asked by Portland to head out to sea to recover a dinghy which was adrift 7 miles out and had been spotted by the Barfleur. 20 minutes later we were alongside and took the opportunity to use it as a datum for a sector search. We then put the training into practise and Andy and Sam rigged the tow before we headed home.

I did of course take a load of pictures...however, I've no idea where my camera is so you'll have to bear with me! I'll post them once I've found it.

As promised

Here are some pictures from our emergency services day at school yesterday.

Ian Brown and Pip Hall from the coastguard were well practised at delivering this sort of presentation to school pupils.

Stephen and the rest of the Fire service team from Wimborne were not surprisingly pretty impressive in their spotless Fire engine.

Liam and Matt from the RNLI had no difficulty holding the kids attention with their awesome looking Atlantic 85 and Jet Ski.

Of course all the kids wanted to know exactly how many criminals Steven, Sarah and Matt had shot this week!

The answer was slightly disappointing for them but for me quite a comfort!

Steph and the ladies from the kitchen kept us very well supplied with tea, Coffee, Bacon sarnies and curry for lunch.

Everyone from all 4 services came along for lunch which must have meant they had enjoyed themselves too.

Thanks once again for coming...

501

Well today was a busy day. I had organised an emergency services day at school so that all of our pupils could get a first hand impression of what all of the emergency services are capable of. I was delighted when everyone who said they would turn up did and was even more delighted to see that they seemed to be enjoying talking to our young people almost as much as they enjoyed it.

Naturally I took loads of pictures and promised to post a load of them up here...naturally I then forgot to bring the flippin' camera home! I'll do it tomorrow lads...I promise.

So a big thank you to Liam and Matt from the RNLI, Ian and Pip from the Coastguard, Steven, Sarah and Matt from the Wimborne Police station and finally Stephen and his team from Wimborne Fire Station. Thanks folks!

501 = my five hundred and first post......tonight.

Southampton

One of the highlights of the boating year for me is the Southampton boatshow. I always like to visit and am often joined by my father from Spain. Naturally there is a strong RNLI presence there...this year there were effectively 3 stands and many cheerful volunteers spreading the word and raising funds and awareness. Much appreciated.
Our good friend Andy White was there running the 'Train one Save Many' roadshow. Seen on the left is his Mum (I think) taking part in the fun.

I bumped into the second Coxswain from Porth Dinllaen, Robert Jones, who was a friendly fellow. In true Welsh style almost the entire crew in Porth Dinllaen is called Jones (5), Williams (4) or Thomas (3). They are shortly to get a Tamar to replace their Tyne class ALB so I should imagine that they are pretty excited about the future of their station.

This young lad was taking the chance to admire an Atlantic 85. He had recently raised a very substantial sum of money for his local station through various fundraising activities. Much appreciated young man...well done!

Busy...but not for me

If you have a look here you'll see that both of our boats have been busy for the last few days. As sometimes happens, all of the shouts have conspired to take place while I've been at work or out of town. After a run of missing shouts like this you start to feel a bit as if you'll never make another!

Luckily our services seem to have been appreciated by those we assisted. Have a read of this, it certainly seems as if this fellow has his head screwed on.

Pride of Britain

The crew of Torbay lifeboat, led by Coxswain Mark Criddle, have been named as finalists in the GMTV emergency services awards. I would imagine that they are pretty chuffed with this! Read the full story here. Voting is taking place this weekend, why not add yours here?
Photo: RNLI

Climbing in

It was exercise night last night and for a change I went on the ILB. One part of the fitness test which I still had to complete was demonstrating the ability to climb into the ILB unassisted from the water. Technically we are allowed to use any one of a number of methods to do this, including using the engine as a step...however, rather like sailors on square riggers spurning the 'lubber's hole', it is considered poor form to re-enter the ILB by any other way than heaving oneself in over the side. Thankfully I managed this thanks to some helpful encouragement from Tom (thanks mate).

It was a crew meeting afterwards and unusually we had little to discuss other than how and where to hold our Christmas party. It looks like it might be the Ship again, perhaps black-tie, perhaps fancy dress. Whatever, I'm sure we'll be well looked after.

Incidentally, this photo was really the best I could do last night (I tried hard to get a decent photo of Tom but that wasn't going to happen). Not what I set out to take but I like it!

Moo

For some time I've been meaning to get some business cards made with the blog address on them. My idea was that I can then give them to people who enquire about the blog rather than constantly handing out scribbled on reciepts. I got these from a firm in London called Moo. The clever bit is that they upload photos from Flickr and will print as many different photos on the back of the cards as you choose. I ordered 100 cards and chose 10 different shots. Perhaps in years to come they'll be collectable like players cigarette cards?!

WAGs

Reflecting back on a busy summer it is clear that much of what we have done would not have been possible without the support of our partners and friends. It would be impossible to name and thank them all individually but without their support we simply couldn't function as we do. Thanks!

A fresh look

at a few pictures from the summer has revealed a few which have been overlooked. This one in particular caught my eye. I'm beginning to prefer more abstract shots of the boats, I guess perhaps I've just run out of fresh angles!

Fitness test

On Wednesday last week we all had to complete some parts of the Lifeboat fitness test. This consisted of some practical assessments to check that we are all capable of completing a set of simple tasks which might be expected of us on the boat: carrying a heavy weight for 50yds (simulates carrying a stretcher), lifting the same heavy weight up a certain height (simulates lifting a person out of the water) and so on. Naturally the lads managed to find a way to turn it into an opportunity to prove just how macho they are!

And the winner? Rob of course...able to hold a full barrel of water away from his body for a full 30secs. Iron man...

What we did last weekend

Was take some camera crew to sea to record some video footage for the offical RNLI YouTube channel. The results are now online and here is a taster!

Last of the summer crowds

Everybody is moaning about our summer this year. At school it is the hot topic of conversation in the staff room. However, despite the gloomy bits, browsing through the photos has revealed plenty of sunny skies and lots of crowds. Here is a typical scene as we launched one day this summer. The boat park and angling club always draw a crowd of strollers whether it is sunny or over-cast. As soon as it becomes apparent that a shout is underway they stand enthralled...literally transfixed by the spectacle unfolding. I guess it will be a bit quieter for a while now.

The Pageant of the bizarre.....

or as most people refer to it, the Swanage Folk Festival, is underway. Now I (along with many of the crew) am a closet 'Folky'.....however, some of the sights in town this weekend are distinctly odd if not downright bizarre!

This queerly dressed fellow was a keen RNLI supporter and sported (alongside a racoon's tail) an RNLI flag in his plumage.

With no hands free to hold his dog, this box squeezer had found a novel solution to controlling his mut.

The girls loved the square dancers and couldn't help but join in. They went down very well too!

I'm always intrigued by Morris dancers. They clearly enjoy what they are doing yet inject so little of that enjoyment into their dances.

And I've simply no idea what these two fellows had come as or for. Presumably they spend their working week hiding in hedges shooting people?

It's a lifeboat exercise in the morning so hopefully something more lifeboat orientated tomorrow night.

Contradiction...

The front page of the RNLI website states that, the aim of the RNLI is to save lives at sea. An important part of fulfilling that aim is to educate folk in how to develop good sea sense and go to sea safely.

So once a year we put on the joint spectacle of the build a boat competition and the raft race!

Here you can see the outcome of the build a boat competition. Clearly seaworthyness was far from the minds of some of the competitors whilst they were constructing their craft.

Although our very own Gav who built this craft for Kim to paddle clearly had a few ideas about what might make for a speedy craft (and she won)!

This chap didn't last very long...of course, we could have predicted this and warned him, it just wouldn't have been so much fun!

Over at the raft race there was a huge turn out and some superb craft. The 'Red Devils' here were crewed by staff from the Purbeck View school and included the Coxn's wife.

Our boys had a go too...and won once more (always welcome 'cos we make them donate the prize money back to the RNLI)!



This typically flamboyant raft was paddled by Rowing Club Chairman George Wallis and his good wife Sue.

Well done to all who took part in a superb days worth of activities. Great fun was clearly had by all and plenty of funds were raised. Thanks.