One of life's little inconveniences

So, this morning I was helping some farming friends out transporting something in the region of fifty chickens from their farm to a farmer's market. Just as I was pulling out of their drive our pagers went off. So I quickly called them and let them know that they could find said chickens in the car down at the boat-park and to help themselves. I meanwhile jumped on the boat and headed out to sea.



Little more than 15 minutes later we came alongside the casualty, a newly purchased commercial fishing vessel, which had issued a Mayday due to engine failure and the strong tidal conditions off St Aldhelm's head. Both of the crew members onboard were OK so we decided to leave them where they were and place a crewmember of ours aboard to assist with rigging the tow and steering. Steve gallantly volunteered to do the heroics and quickly got things rigged on the heavily rolling vessel.



As the tow progressed towards Swanage, Dave, today's navigator, called Portland Coastguard and requested an updated weather forecast. As suspected this was promising a Force 4 South-Easterly wind which would have left the casualty rather exposed on our mooring. Consequently, Martin made the sensible decision to continue the tow up to Poole where we could guarantee the security of the casualty vessel.

Once at the Town Quay in Poole the vessel was rapidly secured alongside with the assistance of the local Coastguards. We then returned home (minus Paul E who elected to remain in Poole so that he could join his partner for some light shopping).

By about 12.30 we were back in the boathouse and ready for further duties. Textbook stuff.

And of the course the chicken was collected and delivered to the market where it all sold I hope.

Get out of jail free card

In the centre of each crewmember's windscreen is a small sticker showing an RNLI flag and the words: Lifeboat Crew. We all like our window stickers. They are a badge of honour for many of us and a symbol of what we are and what we value. However, and I get asked this about once a month, they are categorically not any kind of 'Get out of Jail Free' card or indeed a licence to speed when on a shout/park wherever one wants to/drive on the pavement/leave a shop without paying!

And that is the point of this post. I just wanted to broadcast the answer widely as I get asked it so often. We are not entitled to do anything while in our cars on the way to a shout other than follow the highway code to the letter of the law. That's not to say that we all get it right all of the time, we don't...it has been known for the adrenaline to get the better of someones judgement. However, the management of our station take a very dim view of any transgressions. We are of course very visible and easy to spot (yep, you got it, the window stickers do have a function) and you can guarantee that if one of our crew has done something daft, Neil (LOM), will know about it before the boat returns. And, as people who know him will testify, he's not afraid to let people know what's on his mind in these situations!

Of course, the time is approaching when our small town will be so clogged with holiday makers and day trippers that going anywhere quickly by car becomes out of the question. At these times our crew will arrive at the boathouse by bike, scooter, running, lift-sharing, sail boat, kayak and powerboat. I keep hoping that one day I will get a crew sticker for my shout-bike...

BBC South

Tony Husband of the BBC has been having fun in the Environmental Pool at the College. Watch it here...

Current economic climate

It would seem that all of us have hard decisions to make at the moment when it comes to investing and spending our money. I read this article about Cowes Inshore Lifeboat with interest as it made me realise that despite the RNLI's reputation as being a well healed charity, we too have been hit hard by the Global Financial Meltdown. Plans still need to be made, money still needs to be spent, however, it is comforting to be reminded of the amount of care that those in the 'Ivory Tower' take over the funds so generously donated by you all. Long may this last...

(Photo Credit: RNLI Media Library)

I can see clearly now!

OK, so I've had Rob on the 'phone to re-brief me regarding future lifeboats at Swanage. It turns out that I was part right and part wrong in what I said a few days ago regarding FCB2. I'm afraid I had been guilty of making a few assumptions and, in the words of a former Commanding Officer of mine, 'Assumption is the mother of all cock-ups'!

So what is the genuine inside story? We'll, in this Lifeboat exclusive I can confirm today that, everything being equal, Mersey class lifeboats will all be replaced by FCB2. This includes us so FCB2 it will be. However, FCB2 is NOT designed to go on a slipway and it is NOT intended to change this. So, we will get FCB2 but as yet it has not been decided how we will operate it. Options, and this is pure, dangerous speculation on my part include lying to a mooring, being alongside a jetty, having a pen or being on a carriage in a re-designed boathouse. How exciting!

Watch this space for developments as they occur. I will make sure that in future I get at least some of my facts straight...(no comment needed Dave)!

(Photo: thanks to the RNLI image library)

Changes

Nothing stays the same for ever and nothing is permanent. As Lucretius said, dripping water hollows out a stone. And so small changes drip into our lives at the boathouse. Last month (or was it longer ago than that?) we saw the arrival of new Oxygen and Entonox bottles. Yesterday we were finally allowed to put our new Pyros onto the boat.

I'm not exactly sure why they have been replaced, they do the same jobs but are made by a new company rather than Pains Wessex of old. Anyway, they are operated in a different way to the old ones so before they could be put onto the boat a majority of the crew had to be trained to use them. Now that this is complete Dave has exchanged them with the old ones (which will go back to depot and go back into stock until they are out of date).


Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer ma
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
(Changes - David Bowie)

Congratulations

are in order for Chad and his Mrs - the lovely Jane. On the 20th of March Jane gave birth to their first child called Cameron Lee. Apparently he weighed 6 pound 4 which seems like a good healthy weight! Anyway, by all accounts little Cameron is fit and well and Chad is trying hard to convince himself that life isn't going to change much! Sorry for the delay and congratulations to you all.

FCB2

Is the project name for the replacement lifeboat for the Mersey class. It stands for 'Fast Carriage Boat 2' (the Mersey class was the first fast carriage launched boat in the fleet). Although the Mersey is no longer what could be considered a fast boat (16 knots), when it was introduced it roughly doubled the speed of the classes of lifeboats that it replaced. FCB2 will be almost as great an increase with a top speed of 25 knots. Once it has entered service and replaced all of the existing Merseys, every All Weather Lifeboat in the RNLI fleet will have a 25 knot capability.

And why is this important? Well, obviously it means that we can respond more quickly and get to casualties faster for any given distance. It might also reduce costs. It could do this because with faster boats it could be argued that fewer boats are required to maintain the current response times.

Of course here in Swanage we have been following the FCB2 project with a great deal of interest. Rob, our second Coxswain has been heavily involved in the trials programme and has been keeping us up to date with developments. However, the project has not been entirely straightforward. Some years ago a hull was designed and a prototype built. Rob was the Trials Officer then and took part in the testing of this hull. During the trials in 2008 it became apparent that the performance of the experimental FCB2 boat’s original hull design in rough seas did not meet the operational requirements for an RNLI lifeboat, especially when travelling up-sea in steep waves. The very difficult decision was taken to delay the project and introduction of the boats and redevelop the hull. (As a crewmember this was a very comforting decision. It sends a clear message that as far as the RNLI is concerned, they would not equipe with anything other that the best possible tool for the job).

So the design of the hull was put out to tender and 7 designs were received, one in-house and 6 from other companies. Six scale models were then built and tested by Seaspeed Marine Consulting Ltd both in open water and at QinetiQ’s Ocean Basin and Ship Tank at Haslar, Gosport (3 days of time in the Basin were generously donated by QinetiQ). The outcome of this testing was revealed yesterday. It was announced that the in-house had performed best in the widest possible range of conditions. This is no surprise as a I seem to remember that a similar thing happened with the design of the Atlantic 85. Many of the other designs could do something better than the in-house design, however, what the RNLI requires is an all-rounder...something which is good in all conditions is preferable to something which is brilliant in some conditions but poor in others.

So, what's next? The plan now is to further optimise the hull form to improve performance with fuel economy being an important factor. The hull will then be moulded and fitted out before completing sea trials scheduled for mid 2011.

You can read more about the trials here and there is also some video footage:

(Photo/video: RNLI, with thanks)

Flares...

...are a pretty hot topic of conversation at the moment. The MCA has announced that they are withdrawing the white illuminating parachute flares previously used for search and rescue by their officers on patrol. This will mean that the only pyrotechnic routinely carried by Coastguard Officers are orange smoke generators for marking potential landing sites for rescue helicopters. This will then leave the MCA in the odd position of no longer being a significant user of pyrotechnics, but still being the organisation which is turned to by recreational sea-goers to dispose of their old ones.

Understandably, the MCA is no longer happy to act as the receiver of out of date flares (and they have never been under any statutory obligation to do so) due to the risk of handling them, the logistical difficulties and also the cost. Indeed, their hand is being forced as they have historically used the MOD to actually effect the destruction of these flares and the MOD, which has become more commercially minded itself, is reluctant to continue providing this service.

So Peter Cardy, the Chief Exec of the MCA, has opened up the debate and asked the question, ‘do recreational sea-goers need flares at all’? And it’s a tricky question to answer. Most rescues are initiated electronically (VHF, Mobile, EPIRB etc) and not by flares. However, flares more commonly play their part in the later stages of a rescue when they act as an aid to identifying the exact location of a casualty. Could this perhaps be done using other means? Perhaps Lasers or Strobes?

And what about us as Lifeboat crew? As ever, there has been some confusion about our position in the press. However, we continue to carry and use a pretty wide variety of pyrotechnics. Orange smokes for marking locations, white parachute flares for illumination, red flares for distress, white flares for attracting attention, rocket lines for firing lines across gaps and of course our personal issue ‘day and night’ flares carried on our Lifejackets. The only area where there has recently been a change in what we use has been the use of Maroons which we now seldom fire.

So, if you’d like to add to the debate, feel free to comment here and I’ll pass the comments on to Peter Cardy.

Serious Fun

A year ago I was contacted to ask if I would help with filming a short piece about safe kayaking. This was for a series of short DVDs that the RNLI were filming for a new campaign called 'Serious Fun'. The wonderful Becky from Headquarters got in touch recently to let me know that the campaign has now gone live and that many of the films have footage of our station, our crew and indeed others in Swanage (see if you can spot them).

Here are a few details about the campaign:

The campaign is titled Serious Fun because we want everyone to go out on the water and enjoy their chosen watersports to the maximum, but we also want individuals to take their fun seriously by raising skill levels and staying safe. The campaign aims to engage with a wide range of sea users.

According to our rescue statistics, around half of all RNLI lifeboat launches tend to be to watersports related rescues, i.e., dinghys, yachts, motorboats, windsurfers, sea angling, dive boats, personal watercraft, kayaks, canoes, and kitesurfers. Each of these watersports groups needs to be addressed in a way that's relevant to them so we have produced a DVD as part of the Serious Fun campaign. Featuring 11 short films - each is dedicated to a different watersport and aimed at all levels of skill and experience - the DVD is full of practical tips from experts and action footage, this is also a film about the RNLI and how to support the charity.

We hope this campaign, with the help of the DVD, will prevent more accidents at sea, and save lives - that's what the RNLI is all about. We also hope that it will remind watersports users that they might one day need the RNLI, so we need their support too.

To find out more about Serious fun and to request your copy please visit www.rnli.org.uk/seriousfun

Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to view each DVD online but it is free to order from the RNLI and is sponsored by Helly Hansen so I presume that ordering one doesn't cost the RNLLI anything.

Shhh...

It seems like we have got away with it today. It has mostly been a nice, sunny and warm day but with little wind so plenty of folk have been tempted onto the water. Thankfully though they all managed to stay safe in our patch.

And what do the crew do when the weather is like this and there is no lifeboating to do? Well, we go afloat in some way (while monitoring our VHFs for trouble brewing). Becky, Gav, Kim, myself and the kids went kayaking. My wife, Liz, went swimming in the sea for the first time this year (1 mile wearing a wetsuit). Meanwhile, Dave and our newest recruit, JFL (I'll tell you another time!) were out in Dave's raider with their other halves cruising the bay. We all met up on the water for a chat before heading for some refreshments.

A good day.

Typical 'Bank Holiday' job

Well, the bank holiday is progressing with the usual mixture of 'run-of-the-mill' shouts. All trivial nonsense really, AA jobs if you like. Except they're not. For those people whom we help these sort of shouts make a huge difference. Put yourself in the position of the parents of the two girls who the ILB rescued today. You're there on the beach having a nice family day out. The kids go out for a paddle their dinghy. The next thing you you know they are being blown rapidly out to sea and you are unable to help. What next? Well, might I be so bold as to suggest that the arrival of the lifeboat may have come as something of a relief to the distraught parents?!

So, job done...two scared young people brought ashore and tow parents mightily relieved...it's what we are here for.

What's next I wonder?

Incidentally, well done to Becky for getting on the shout today. As far as I am aware this was her first shout after a long lay-off due to injury. Good to have you back Haddock!

So what happens?

When you're at the end of a long journey, safely executed and you loose all of your power? If on a yacht there's no problem...hoist the sails and continue your journey. Except, you're 10 miles out to sea, in a reasonably busy shipping route and it's dark so once your power is exhausted you can show no Navigation lights.

The sensible thing to do of course is to call the Coastguard and make them aware of your position. They can then decide whether to; leave you out there and take the chance of you being struck by another vessel or ask for a lifeboat to launch to tow you into a safe anchorage.

This is exactly what happened last night to a group of well organised yachtsmen (and women) at the end of a passage from La Coruna in Northern Spain delivering a 42ft yacht to its' owner. We were called at about 9.55 and asked to proceed to a position about 10 miles south of St Aldhelm's head. Once on scene it was obvious that the crew knew what they were doing and so we left them to attach the tow to their own vessel which they did. Making about 7 1/2 knots we towed them back towards Swanage where they could await an engineer to fix their problem this morning.

What was clear was that they had had no company other than their own for the best part of a week as they were extremely chirpy and chatty. De-mob happy almost!

Anyway, sorry for the absence...call it writers block (and a skiing holiday). Happy Easter to you all.

New wire

Much of our launching and recovery hardware has been replaced recently; We have new rollers on half of the slipway (the other half will be replaced soon), we have new strops for holding the boat during recoveries, we have also just had a replacement for out old winch wire fitted. This is a fantastic hi-tech piece of rope made from some exotic fibres (spectra I think). One real benefit of this new rope is that it is much lighter than the old one so is easier to rig up. It also won't corrode so doesn't require to be greased. Therefor the whole job of launching and recovering should be much cleaner and easier. Good news.

During last nights crew meeting both Andy Lyons and Mark Stuart were successfully signed off as having completed their probationary periods. They both work very locally so will be able to significantly enhance our day-time cover. Great stuff, well done lads and welcome.

Whaling

Each year we try to improve upon last year's Lifeboat Week with ever more imaginative and exciting activities and fundraising events. This year my responsibility is for booking the bands for the Friday and Saturday night. Martin has also tasked me with finding some way of broadening the appeal of Saturday afternoon when we hold our 'build-a-boat' competition. One of my ideas is to hold a sort of mini sea shanty festival. It's certainly in keeping with our maritime nature and would (I think) be perfectly suited to the location in Prince Albert's garden and of course the fine weather which we have booked! I'll keep you posted on my progress with this...

What do you think? Like the idea? Hate it? Please let me know (of course, if you have any other ideas for what we can do please let me know about those ideas too).

What happens when you can't make it?

Typically, yesterday evening when our pagers went off, my wife, Liz had just gone out for a run. Unfortunately one of the children was ill too so I was unable to take them down to the boathouse with me. Consequently, I was unable to respond to my pager's insistent call and had to sit idly by and watch the boat launch without me.

So what happens when crew are unable to respond like this? Well, for precisely this reason we have a great deal of 'built in redundancy' in the crew. In the broadest sense we require a minimum of 10 to launch both boats, 6 crew on the ALB, 2 on the ILB, and a winchman for each. Altogether we have something in the region of 25 crewmembers so we have 150% more than we need. We then train each of these crewmembers in a number of roles, thus we have 4 qualified coxswains, a similar number of emergency mechanics, 8 or so navigators, 4 helmsmen for the ILB etcetera. So when the pagers go off, those who can respond do so and a crew is created out of who turns up.

Yesterday for the ALB this meant Martin our Coxswain was missing so Rob (our Second Coxswain) took his place. Dave (mechanic) was there, I was missing so Gav took my place, all of the rest of the top 6 crew were there (Skid and Paul) so Rob then chose another 3 crew to make up 8 in total (James, Dan and Matt).

So, what did they have to do? Well here in the words of our website are the details:

At 17:43 Portland Coastguard requested the launch of Swanage's All Weather Lifeboat to go to the assistance of a 26' yacht in difficulties in the tidal race south of St Albans Head. The yacht's engine had failed and with the falling wind the yacht was being swept West into the overfalls. The lifeboat launched and was alongside the yacht 25 minutes later. Assistant Mechanic Matt Steeden was put aboard the yacht to secure a towline and check the yacht's crew were OK. With the towline rigged the slow tow home started, both boats made it back to Swanage just over an hour later. The yacht was secured to the lifeboat mooring and the crew brought ashore so they could make arrangements to get the yacht fixed.

Just watching this...

made my stomach churn!

This is Thurso lifeboat out on a shout rescuing a broken down crabbing boat in force 7 - 8 winds. I would imagine that they would have had a fairly bouncy trip out to the casualty followed by a lot of wallowing about trying to connect the tow and then a long slow passage home. Well done lads.

Details

It never pays to under-estimate the amount of effort a lifeboat mechanic puts into attending to even the smallest of details. Our Oxygen and Entonox sets have just been replaced with new ones (composite bottles and different valves/masks) and no longer fit into the original stowages which are built into the boat below the Helmsman's and radar operator's seats. Consequently Dave has been occupying some of his time trying to re-arrange things. And this is what he has come up with:

Hi

Now that the new Entonox & Oxygen sets are in the fore-cabin this has left the two foot lockers in the wheelhouse (where the Entonox & Oxygen used to be) virtually empty. The one under the radar has the spare Entonox & Oxygen cylinders in, the other is empty.

In order to stop the spare gas cylinders rattling around and because it seemed sensible I have now put 2 of the 4 blankets carried on board (the other 2 are still in the locker by the main first aid kit) in the locker under the radar seat.

I have also put an orange survival bag in the bag with each of the blankets as it seemed a logical place to put them.

Any questions please ask or better still come and have a look on the boat to see what I mean.

Cheers

Dave

Did You know...

about Dave's Text message service?

Some time ago Dave set up a service where you are able to subscribe to a text message alert system that will send you a message within minutes of our Lifeboats launching. Messages are charged at 25p each, 10p of which will be donated to the RNLI. At the moment we raise a small but significant amount of money in this way. As they say, every little helps.

To subscribe to this service simply text the following:

RNLI-SWANAGE START

to 60300 on your mobile phone. You will receive a confirmation message to say that you have successfully subscribed.

Once you have done that you will get a text everytime we are launched on service. Don't worry...you won't be exactly inundated at the moment!

Alternatively you could set up a Virtual Pager from the RNLI website to let you know whenever we (or other stations) launch.

Skid's Ark Royal trip

So it's a few weeks now since Skid went to sea on HMS Ark Royal. Finally however, I've managed to get some photos out of him so here are a few. From what he has said about it he had a terrific time and loved every minute of it. Judge for yourself.

He got the obligatory shot of himself stood next to the ships name-board.

Training on these sort of ships is continual and ongoing so Skid got to watch plenty going on. Here a couple of the lads are practising some gun drills.

The ships own flight were not embarked so there were no aircraft onboard. However, the RAF did oblige with a few landings in one of their Search and Rescue Seaking helicopters.

Sunsets at sea are always particularly impressive.

Skids voyage ended on home turf in Portsmouth, here the Ark Royal is passing the Spinnaker tower.

A great trip and I'm sure that Skid will remember the trip for many years to come. If anyone in the Royal navy is reading this...many thanks for making this trip possible and perhaps next time you might like to invite me?!

On Friday night

Portland Coastguard requested the launch of the ALB to assist in the search for a missing man who had last been seen swimming out to sea from Sandbanks. Both the Poole lifeboats were on scene, however, presumably because it was night time both 'Flank' stations, Swanage and Mudeford lifeboats were tasked to assist. At about 10pm we were paged but just as the lifeboat was about to launch a call came in to say that Poole ILB had recovered the man and were taking him ashore. Consequently we were stood down. A happy outcome.

Incidentally, this was the first shout for our latest DLA Lynda Oliver who should find it easy to arrive on time as she lives practically next door to the station! Welcome.

This week should be busy as Dave is away, the radio course continues tonight, there is a 'Dry' exercise on Wednesday and a full exercise on Sunday. ILB helmsman in Deasy and DLA is Neil Hardy.

Still having trouble with photos!

We were only pretending

Unfortunately a few kind readers got the wrong end of the stick yesterday and assumed that Wednesday's excitement was a rather heroic rescue. Fortunately not, it was simply an attempt to try and convey some of the realism of the excellent scenario which we dealt with on exercise that night...just goes to show!

By the way. I've discovered what the problem with photos is. Each time a photo is uploaded to Blogger a copy is sent to a folder in Picasa which is also part of the Google stable of free online software (bear with me I'm not very techy). Apparently this has a limit of 1GB of free storage space and once this is exceeded you are no longer able to upload photos to Blogger. It seems as if I now need to pay $20 to upgrade my storage to 10GB. So, problem solved, normal service should be resumed in the next day or so.

We did enough to save his life

was the conclusion of how we treated last nights severely injured casualty.

We launched at 7pm tasked to conduct a search from Ballard Point to the Grand hotel looking for a man who had apparently fallen down the cliff. The ILB started at the Grand and the ALB at Ballard point, conditions at the base of the cliff were slight so our search was good and close to the shore and in short order the ILB spotted our man. 2 crewmen were put ashore (Matt and Oli) so as to assess his injuries and stabilise him ready for evacuation. It quickly became apparent that his injuries were extensive (large open leg fracture, open arm fracture, spinal injury and extensive abdominal bruising) and his condition deteriorating rapidly.

2 further men were sent ashore form the ALB via the ILB with stretcher, oxygen and large first aid kit. Once a collar was put on he was transferred to the basket stretcher and brought out to the ALB for transfer back to the slipway to meet the ambulance. The transfer went smoothly and he was soon in the wheelhouse having his wounds dressed and immobilised.

Meanwhile, in a dramatic twist, Martin (Coxswain) began to complain of feeling unwell. Within a few short minutes his condition deteriorated to the point where we realised it might be something more than originally thought. Chad and I joined later by Kev attended to him. It quickly became obvious that he was suffering from some sort of non-traumatic chest condition (heart attack) so we treated what we saw (clammy forehead, severe vice like chest-pain, sat in a 'W' position, unresponsive and shallow breathing) by first of all running through an AMPLE assessment then giving GTN spray, an asprin and free-flow oxygen. It would be an exaggeration to say that he recovered but his deterioration was certainly halted. Thank goodness!

Once we returned to the slipway, both casualties were handed over to Dorset Ambulance staff and after re-housing both boats and stowing kit we headed up into the crewroom for a de-brief at the hands of Paul Savage and the new RNLI First Aid trainer - Vicky Tomalin.

Overall their observations were very positive and they were of the conclusion that we had achieved what we set out to do...save life. A good exercise.

having a few photo issues which I will try and rectify later on

GMDSS

Stands for Global Maritime Distress Safety System and is an internationally agreed-upon set of safety procedures, types of equipment, and communication protocols which have been designed to make it easier to communicate with and ultimately rescue vessels in distress at sea.

It is not the most inspiring topic for learning, however, it is an essential part of how rescues are conducted in the modern age and so we must know our stuff. On our crew there are 8 of us who hold a VHF and MF radio certificate and these are now due for re-validation. With this in mind we will be training for 3 evenings over the next two weeks with an instructor from the College in Poole. Wish us luck!

Open Day

I promised Ian and the guys at Swanage Coastguard that I'd give their Open Day a mention. It looks like the weather is going to be better than it was for the official opening ceremony.

Saturday 21st February

North Beach Car Park,

De Moulham Road Swanage.

13:30 to 16:00

Subject to weather and operational commitments

If you'd like to have a look round their sparkly new station then pop along, I know they'll make you very welcome. You may enough be lucky enough to get a cup of Coastguard tea!

On a roll!

Exciting day at the lifeboat station today! We've been waiting ages for our new rollers and spindles to arrive . . well they finally have!

There are 42 in total, enough to replace all the badly worn steel ones that are in the slipway at the moment.

Allan from RNLI Shoreworks came to station and we installed 7 new rollers into the slipway in the boathouse. The new rollers are made of nylon and with the new spindles are hopefully going to be maintenance free as they require no greasing (good news for me!). Its important that the rollers are the correct height to allow the boat to rock a little bit but not too high so it rocks over to one side and stays there. We did this with an engineers square from the main part of the keelway.

Its also important that the rollers are level so that the boat isn't forced to side of the keelway. This is done with a small spirit level which gives good enough results.

So that's 7 down 35 to go! The steel rollers weigh about 4o kilos each so that's about 1.5 tons of steel to move :o( we as a station have been asked to fit the next 20 the rest will be fitted by contractors as there's some repair work to be done on the plates that support the rollers. Once that's done they'll all be levelled with a laser (some how!) and measurements taken so I can keep an eye on them and make sure they're not wearing.

I'm looking forward to the first launch, the boat should fly down on her new free spinning rollers.

Divers Down

This morning we've had Apex Divers at station. They were here to carry out the annual inspection on our moorings and also to replace the pickup ropes on the main mooring. The annual inspection isn't quite due but because they had to come and change the ropes it made sense to do the inspection at the same time. I bet the diver would have rather waited until a little later in the year!

There are 4 of them. The diver, standby diver, boat man and the dive master.

The first job was to inspect the main mooring and replace the pickup ropes. The main mooring has 2 anchors that run aprox East/West. These are connected by a heavy ground chain, a riser comes off the centre of the ground chain up to the buoy.

The breasting buoys were checked next. The Western one was moved back into position as it had been washed in to the West by the waves in the latest round of strong Easterly winds. The breasting moorings only have a single anchor and are designed so that we can pull towards the slipway. Unfortunately this means that the Western one is prone to getting washed out of position. The RNLI are looking at making this mooring more like our main mooring to stop this.

And the results? Good news is that the main mooring and Western breasting mooring are fine, the bad news is that the Eastern breasting mooring is badly worn. The anchor is OK as is the buoy but all the chain and shackles will need replacing. I guess we'll be seeing the divers again sooner than expected!

S O S - Scheduled Oil Samples

Well while John's away in Wales doing something or other in a tent he asked me to look after the blog. His exact words were . . . "perhaps you could do a few techy things?"

As it happens we've got a few techy things on this week.

The biggest part of my job is the planned maintenance for the Mersey. This varies in complexity from checking bulbs are working to oil changes on the engines. These days we don't just change the oil annually or every so many hours (as you would in your car). What we do is every 3 months I sample the oil from both engines (see above from the starboard engine) and send it off to Finnings (www.finning-sos.co.uk). The clever scientist people at Finnings then test the oil and carefully analyse the results. They test for water and fuel in the oil, different metals in the oil and the condition of the oil itself. By comparing the results to set standards and to previous results they can detect engine problems before the user notices them. Coolant in the oil for example is a good indicator that a head gasket is leaking, increased metal levels can show that bearings are wearing.

If Finnings recommend that the oil is changed then this is done as soon as possible. Once the engine has run for about 10 hours on the new oil another sample is taken. This then gives the new benchmark for that engine. By doing this we are able to extend the period between oil changes from annually to about 2 yearly. This means less oil and filters to buy and dispose of, good for the environment and good for our pocket too!

For those of you who remember their periodic table, here's a list of what they test for.

I've put our samples in the post, should have the results by the end of the week. Fingers crossed they should be OK.

In the mean time if anyone's got any "Techy" questions please feel free to ask away.

Dave

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.

IRPCS

Each Wednesday night during the winter we are running shore based training at the boathouse for anyone who wants to brush up on things. These sessions are being run by the Coxswain, Second Coxswains and ILB Helmsmen. Topics to be covered are as follows:

Martin: ALB deckwork, fenders, towing, anchor
Rob: Your role/Station management/RNLI personnel, CoBT, Launch & Recovery
Dave: ALB layout & machinery, alarms, fire drill
John: Keeping a lookout, lights/shapes/sounds
Steve: Position and North, This is a chart, how deep is it.
Kev, Tom, Gav, Deasy still to be confirmed

So far the sessions are being well attended. Last night Sam, Ty, Darren, Becky and Andy turned out to spend an hour learning about keeping a lookout and lights, shapes and sound signals. Being completely honest, the subject matter is not the most inspiring, however, it is fundamental to keeping us safe at sea so we do need to make the effort to learn this stuff.

Luckily we are well supported in our endeavours by the RNLI who produce excellent online learning resources which we can all access at home. Hopefully now those 5 crew from last night have been online and have practised what we learnt using the 'Operations Training Online' (or OTO) resource from the RNLI.

Breasting

So the next question was; What are Breasting lines?

Well, breasting lines are ropes which we use to help us re-house the lifeboat when the wind and waves are from such a direction that the lifeboat is difficult to hold in position. I'm hoping that this little diagram makes this clear. In this example the wind direction is from the East and along with some waves from the same direction could make re-housing tricky. To help we have two buoys permanently laid, one to the East and one to the West. These are called 'Breasting Buoys'. By attaching a rope to the Easterly one of these we can prevent the bow of the lifeboat being pushed off to the West as the Coxswain manoeuvres to locate the keel in the keel-way on the slipway. This is done by keeping just the right amount of tension on the breasting line. Of course, that's the really tricky part...knowing what constitutes just the right amount of tension! Ultimately, this knowledge can only be gained with experience.

Drogue

I was recently asked what a drogue is. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned this device before but here goes! (and this is pretty much lifted from Wikipedia!):

'A drogue is a device to slow a boat down in a storm so that it does not speed excessively down the slope of a wave and crash into the next one. By slowing the vessel in heavy weather, the drogue can make it easier to control. A drogue is usually constructed to provide substantial resistance when dragged through the water, and is trailed behind the vessel on a long line'.

In our case, the drogue is towed behind the lifeboat in conditions where we are heading with the sea (not straight into it). It does two things for us, firstly it makes the boat more controllable from a steering perspective, secondly it prevents the boat from surfing on the wave face and so makes for a more controlled passage. Ours has enough line attached that the distance it is from the stern of the boat can be varied according to the wave pattern (the longer the wave length the longer the main line). It also has a tripping line so that it can be tripped when not needed and also to assist with recovery.

In all honesty I have never witnessed ours being used in anger, however, I can certainly imagine a time when it might be needed.

incidentally, it is a very similar looking device to a sea anchor, however, a sea anchor has a distinctly different purpose. That is, to hold the boats bow head to sea in an almost stationary position.

Harry roughers

Last night was an exercise night. It was surprisingly rough in the bay and once we arrived in the boathouse it became apparent that we wouldn't be going to sea. This is why:


Although it wasn't a massive sea it was breaking over the end of the slip in such a way that recovery would have been awkward and could perhaps have resulted in damage to the boat.

Alternatively we could have launched and then left the boat on the mooring. However, by doing this we would have had to use the ILB to recover the crew ashore. The ILB slipway wasn't a lot better than the ALB one and again, launch and recovery would have been risky.

It was no better in between the two town jetties.

Of course, if it had been a shout we would have launched no worries, however, on exercise we do try to limit the damage to man and machine by making prudent and careful decisions. Well done Martin!

Snowed under

So it's snowed.

For once Swanage got some too which certainly made for fun. Most Swanage schools were still open but my place of work was shut for the day yesterday...shame!


Of course, I began the day with good intentions of getting up to date with marking and planning but that lasted all of 10 minutes before I got tempted out for a snowball fight.

Lifeboat wise all was normal. The boatpark was snowy and thus travel to the boathouse was dicey in a car...however, between us we have a higher than average number of 4x4s so realistically our response to a call on our services will have been unaffected.

Skid...full of excitement has headed North to Newcastle to join HMS Ark Royal. Last I heard he was still alongside and that they had been delayed sailing. I guess by now he is steaming down the north sea and enjoying the spectacle of flying from the deck of a carrier. Enjoy every moment mate.

Sample our Sponges

Well today is RNLI SOS day.

Keen to support this, my year group at school have been busy raising awareness by giving an assembly and raising funds by baking and selling cakes. And they did very well too. They raised over £200 selling their home made wares during breaktime. In addition, several young people stopped me today just to let me know that they have decided that they want to be a lifeboatman when they grow up! How about that.

So well done Dumpton Year 8 (it's a long time since I've witnessed such strong armed selling tactics) and well done to all of the other pupils who remembered to bring some money.

(Thanks to Tyneside college students for the image)

Why?

Why not...

I mean, I've a long list of things I'm intending to blog about, but just can't find the energy amidst a cold and the promise of a parent's evening tonight. So it'll all have to wait. In the meantime I hope you enjoy this nice image.

By the way. Just had a message from Dave to say that we are testing a new, ground based, replacement for our old maroons this afternoon. So if you are in swanage and hear some odd noises...that's what they are.

Are we enjoying this?

I mentioned that Sunday was a bit rough. Whenever the weather is like this and it coincides with rougher than average weather, we tend to change our plans and have what we call a 'rough weather' exercise. In these situations we batten down the hatches, take an experienced crew but with the addition of a few youngsters, and go out to sea towards St Alban's head where the roughest water will be.

Then slow time we run through some drills which can only be practised in rougher water. We have plenty of 'man overboards'; these give crew members a chance to get used to searching for small things in rough water and then maneuvering about on deck when it is pitching and rolling. Each crewmember will get a chance to drive the boat both up-sea and down-sea to get a chance to develop a feel for how she handles in rougher weather and how to adapt your helming style so as to make progress while keeping the crew safe and comfortable.

We will then also practise using the drogue in realistic conditions and also practise
using the breasting lines when recovering the boat onto the slipway.

On Sunday, we did all of this and more. And it went well. The crew coped with the extra demands and most of them seemed to positively enjoy it. And that is the truth of the matter...once you've been on the crew for a while you begin to relish a bit of rougher than average weather. John here certainly seemed to be loving every moment of it (in any case, he's one of those people who lives life for the moment and enjoys it come what may).

You know that it's lumpy when this happens...

You take off from one wave.

And when you land you disappear from view!

Yesterday wasn't really too rough but there were a few larger than average waves out there just waiting to ambush us!

Soap Our Saloons

As the Swanage crew contribution towards the RNLI annual SOS fundraising day, many of the crew spent part of today washing cars to raise money. Based at Jewsons, our lads and lasses apparently brought part of the town to a standstill as up to 30 cars queued to be washed. In total £723.76 not bad for 6 1/2 hours work!

Tomorrow is an exercise day so be sure to check back and find out what we've been up to.

Opportunity Knocks

Every now and then an opportunity comes along which is to good to pass up. Last week exactly that happened when one crewmember from our station was offered the chance to spend some time on HMS Ark Royal while she is on passage from Newcastle to Portsmouth. As far as I understand it this is purely a jolly and designed to strengthen the (already very strong) link between the armed forces and the Institution. As is traditional in these situations, names were drawn from a hat and the 'wonderful - and not even slightly interested in girls' Matt Steeden won! Amazingly, and incredibly generously, he then decided that he would give his place on the ship to Skid as it is his 60th birthday this year. What a fine fellow.

Well done Matt, a very generous and selfless act. Skid, we are all looking forward to seeing your photos and reading a few blog posts about your trip. Perhaps you'll consider keeping a diary which we could post here?