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.

Suprise visit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy days!!

Missing person

Wednesday was a particularly busy day for the ILB who had a shout in the early afternoon. Apparently a person was threatening to jump off the cliffs near Old Harry. The ILB was paged and quickly launched. At the same time the Coastguard proceeded to search the top of the cliffs. Nothing was found so all units were returned to base or station and stood down. Crew were Gav (helm), Ant and Darren.

Lost and found

So last night was an inspectors exercise. We had the pleasure of going to sea with a very full boat which included our Divisional Inspector Adrian Carey and a colleague who is on the crew of a lifeboat on the North Island of New Zealand. He has recently won their award for volunteer of the year and has been rewarded with a trip to the UK to spend some time with the RNLI to see how we do things over here. Judging by our brief conversation, he has been mightily impressed by all that he has seen.

As part of the exercise we put in our 'special marker buoy' at the start of the exercise and then searched for it at the end. In fact we found it pretty easily and then re-deployed it for the final half hour of the exercise so that we could have another look once it had got dark. Worryingly we then struggled to find it! Once we had recovered it, it turned out that the lifejacket light on the top of it had malfunctioned. Indeed the only way we found it was by a brief flash in the dark as one of the search lights caught some of the 'retro-reflective' tape and made a flash. For me it highlighted the value of 'retro-tape' and demonstrated just how effective it can be in helping searchers to locate their caualty.

All good...

Stag do...

Here's the video from the ILB headcam worn by our very own Oli last night.

Thanks to Dave T for editing it.

Oh deer...

Once again I was disturbed in the middle of my dinner (toad in the hole) and made my way quickly down to the boathouse (on the new 'Shout Bike') tonight.

Linda, this weeks DLA, explained that we were being launched to a report of a deer stranded on rocks in Durlston Bay. The ILB made it's way round quickly with our Senior Helm, Tom, in charge. Once on scene they went ashore and made an assessment and, after consulting with the RSPCA through Portland Coastguard, decided to guide the animal onto safe ground then leave it to it's own devices.

The boat arrived back just as it was gloaming so the photos I'm afraid are dreadful. Still, perhaps they capture something of a late evening recovery at springtime? For better photos have a look at Julian Sawyer's blog for something much better.

There is a fair old breeze blowing into the bay so it in fact looked quite bleak and uninviting out there.

Ex RNLB Gertrude

Friend Mike Streeter sent this photo over a few weeks ago and I've been meaning to post it ever since.

Hi John,

Found this old girl resting peacefully in Mevagissey on a recent visit to Cornwall. (I never seem to get to these harbours when there is any water in them!) The boat is "Gertrude" and at the time I was not sure what class of boat it is. Research has shown her to be a 46ft. Watson, and, apparently, one of the last open cockpit boats built. Later modified by having the windscreen removed and a wheel shelter added.

I can't find out much about her service life but she was stationed at Sheerness from 1970-1974, probably the end of her career. She was replaced by a 44ft. Waveney.

Hope all is well in the lifeboat world

Mike Streeter

Self righting

I was recently asked what it was about the design of a lifeboat which makes it self-righting. Now,I'm not very technical but my understanding is as follows:

All the heavy stuff like engines,shafts and fuel are low down in the boat and all the light stuff, like a wheelhouse full of air are at the top. When it is upside down the heavy stuff wants to be back at the bottom and the light stuff wants to be back at the top so it rolls back upright. The newer clases (Tamar and FCB2) have cavernous wheelhouses and snap back upright quite quickly, Merseys are a bit sluggish in comparison. It's interesting in the video to see how the lifeboat sits while upside down...bow pointing right up into the air.

Start of the season?

So now that the clocks have gone forward I consider that the season has started. Last night was our first Wednesday exercise of the year since time was advanced and for the first time in a long time we launched in the light.

To watch us there were even a few hardy souls braving the bracing wind to see us make our splash. I just hope they got a better photo of us than we got of them.

And it was a good 'real-time' exercise where Rob put the crew onboard (and the ILB) through their paces with some simple but realistic scenarios. Mostly it went according to plan!

What didn't though was our post exercise pint and a sing song in the Red Lion. Once we'd got comfortable and begun to sing a few tunes (assisted this time by Robin, and Mike and Jim Etherington) our pagers sounded to spoil our fun...typical. So the back bar cleared quickly and soon we were heading out to offer our assistance.

It was a fairly typical shout, indeed, save for geography identical to the last. A yacht with engine and various other gear failures was struggling to make headway 4 miles to the East of the bay. Once on scene we rigged a tow and decided, because of the forecast winds, to take her into Poole. All went smoothly despite some difficulty of manoeuvring a 15 metre yacht alongside a 12 metre lifeboat. Nevertheless, she was soon secure alongside the quay and we made our way back to the boathouse to be ready for further service by 3am.

Think of those crew who had to be up for work this morning...

William Riley Part II

When she left service the 'William Riley' spent a short time in store before being sold in November 1931 for just £35 to Mr B. Greenstreet of Walthamstow and was converted at some cost into a motor cruiser called 'Whitby II'. By the mid 70's she had moved inland to Stourport where she was fitted with a 2.2 litre engine. In the late 80’s or early 90’s the boat was moved to Devon and moored at Barnstaple, once again named 'William Riley'. After a succession of owners she was sold again in 2001 and had an new cabin and engine fitted. After having been towed in by the RNLI with engine failure she sometime later escaped her moorings and was swept into the low bridge at Barnstaple destroying the wheelhouse. Later, on a low tide, the boat sadly settled onto a mooring post resulting in two holes in the hull below the waterline. The next owner had little time for repair work, so there she remained in a deteriorating and near derelict state. Her cabin rotted and vandalism resulted in further damage to the hull. In 2005 her owner decided to dispose of her by putting her for sale on eBay advertising her as a derelict lifeboat and she was spotted by Dave Charlton, a fundraiser for the RNLI in the North-East who recognised her historical importance.

(thanks to the Whitby Historic Lifeboat Trust for the photo)

Talking about Lifeboat DNA

We have secured the loan of the 'William Riley' historic lifeboat from Whitby to use for some fundraising activities this summer. The plan is that we will have her here for some of Carnival week in order to raise funds and raise awareness of our Lifeboat week which will follow on about a fortnight later.

"William Riley of Leamington and Birmingham" was one of a batch of light, shallow draught pulling (rowing) lifeboats built by the Thames Iron Works at Canning Town in London in 1909. Given hull number TL37 and official number 594 she was built at a cost of £722.9.1d, provided by a legacy from William Riley of Leamington. Her 10 oars could have two men each, so with a coxswain, assistant coxswain and bowman 23 men completed her crew.

She was stationed at Upgang lifeboat station, 1 mile to the north of Whitby, where she served 10 years and launched twice before the station was closed and she was moved to Whitby. She served for another 22 years at Whitby as the number 2 boat (there was also a motor lifeboat) and launched a further 31 times saving 10 lives.

DNA

Amongst the many things that we discussed last week at RNLI Headquaters, Paul Boissier and I talked at length about the heritage of the RNLI and what it means for us and the institution. He used the expression 'Lifeboat DNA' which I liked very much.

In Paul's view it is vital that the RNLI is not seen as merely a 'Victorian' institution which dwells entirely on it's past and fails to move forwards. Equally, he recognises that it is the very history of the RNLI and the reputation that this has created which gives it such high recognition and levels of support on the streets of our nation.

In his opinion it is essential to recognise exactly what it is that is fundamental to the lifeboat DNA and build upon this strength in a balanced way.

Part of this is keeping hold of the history of the Institution and re-telling the stories of past deeds in a meaningful and respectful way.

Another part is to embrace new technology and move with the times in a way which strengthens and improves the service that we provide around the coast.

Ultimately this has been what the RNLI has always done and thankfully our new Boss recognises this and is determined for it to continue.

Before 'n' After

Our boathouse is rather small and we often struggle to find space for training and storage. So when two old buildings behind the boathouse came up for rent it was decided to put a bid in for them. The first is the old Coastguard hut which we hope will in time become usable as a teaching space both for crew and for visiting school groups.

The other is an old munitions store and toilet block for the coastal defence battery which used to inhabit Peveril point.

It has been empty for some time now and with some work will make a good store for all of our Guild's fundraising supplies.

Today we held a work party for a couple of hours to clear all of the junk out of the two buildings in preparation for making them properly weather and water tight.
Tom took three or four loads up to the tip in his pickup.

While Dave, Kev and John cleared all of the growth off the roof.

By the time I left we had three relatively empty and clean spaces ready to begin work on their transformation in to usable spaces...watchthis space!

Getting ready...

So my old 'shout bike' has breathed its' last breath. It's had one dunking too many and seized solid. So, for some time now I have been looking into sourcing a suitable replacement. Unaccustomed as I am to paying for shout bikes, I today responded to an advert in the Co-Op for a man's mountain bike and, £30 later, I was the proud owner of this little beauty (not to mention a full compliment of accessories such as water bottle, lock, helmet, lights, panniers and trip computer). Understandably I'm pretty excited by it and looking forwards to a summer of cycling too and from the boathouse. And by the way Chad...it's locked up!

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.

Animation

Saw this on Facebook and love it. Created by Helen Peacock as part of a brief set by the Univeristy of Sunderland. Excellent stuff Helen!

In safe hands

I had the very real pleasure today of meeting the new CEO of the RNLI, Paul Boissier (who I nearly but not quite met in January). Kindly Paul gave up some of his time for a chat about his role and the state of the RNLI as he has found it.

What quickly became apparent was how impressed he is with what he has found from speaking with both the Crews, fundraisers and employees that he has met...but also, and I think very importantly, how keen he is to continue to build upon the RNLI's heritage and also it's reputation for innovating and providing a world leading rescue service.

It was clear from what he had to say that he recognises that he has inherited a truly treasured national institution and that he is looking forward with enthusiasm to spending the next decade of his life ensuring that he can pass it on in even better health than it is at the moment.

I hope to have some more photos and possibly even some audio from the meeting in the next day or two, so watch this space.

In the meantime, thanks Paul for your time and welcome aboard!

A couple of photos

A couple of photos from last night's shout taken by Dave Corb on his iphone I presume.

Here's the ALB being recovered, note the amount of PPE being worn by the slipway crew.

And here is what some of the other crew were up to while we were out...downloading the latest iphone apps I presume?!

March shout

There's nothing worse than sitting down to a Sunday roast only to be called from the table by a buzzing pager. However, needs must and it would seem that most of the crew left half eaten roasts to attend this evening's shout. Once we had assembled, it turned out that we were heading out to a 33ft yacht which had lost nearly all power in a dying breeze and so were unable to start their engine and were drifting pretty much at the mercy of the tide in the tidal race at St Aldhelm's race. Once on scene we put Rob aboard and rigged up a tow prior to towing them back to our mooring in Swanage. After an 8 mile tow we soon had them attached to our mooring and safely ashore.

I'm now sat here typing and enjoying cold crumble!

Fishermen's Friends

I woke up to this story on the radio this morning. Funny really because only last night a number of the crew were involved in singing some shanties after the exercise. Perhaps we are in at the start of a resurgence? Even Johnny Depp is doing it!