Let's partay!

So last night was the first big night of the Lifeboat Weekend. What a party it was. Coming as it did at the end of probably the best day of summer so far, it was an incredible success.

The boys behind the bar seemed to be having a great time as usual though they were as busy as I can ever remember it being.

My mate John Deering and his band, the Wiseleys, came and played two fantastic sets which really got the evening rocking. As with all the bands this year they gave their time and incredible talent for free...nice one guys! If you are reading this in the West London area and need an awesome party band, give them a call...

KT was awesome as ever on her Viola (like a violin but bigger and deeper I am told).

NuffSaid also turned up for yet another tremendous performance. Without doubt Nick and his gang are turning out to be one of the premier acts in the area. Great stuff which really got the night off to a rocking start. Thanks!

And the crowd loved it all.

If you missed it, come on down to Prince Albert Gardens this evening and witness the fun all over again.

Flag Day

So today, as well as being the first big night down at Prince Albert's Gardens, is also the day when our supporters in town hit the streets and shack their tubs raising money for the RNLI. I've just had a quick scout around town and here are a few photos of the great and the good doing their stuff.

Katrina (Mrs Cox'n) was out with one of her lovely dogs shaking her funky thing outside of Boots.

Meanwhile Robin was lost in translation with a couple of visitors from Latvia.

Almost every shop door had some kind supporter encouraging passers by to help us in what we do.

Katrina's sister, Belinda was there too on the sunny side of the street.

Well done and thanks to you all for you valued support...

Too many Florence nightingales
Not enough robin hoods
Too many halos not enough heroes
Coming up with the goods
So you though you'd like to change the world
Decided to stage a jumble sale
For the poor, for the poor
(The Housemartins - Flag Day)

Race night

Tonight we launched the ALB for the Swanage Sailing Club RNLI pennant race and the Swanage Sea Rowing Club RNLI Gig race. The weather was fair with a pleasant breeze so altogether a great evening.

Dave and Rob were both onboard.

The race got off to a smooth start for once with no dramas.

Our very own Lifeboat Operations Manager was taking part and seemed to be doing reasonably well.

In the rowing Martin was taking part with a team from the Gig club who looked pretty well drilled.

And our very own (and recently victorious) RNLI gig crew were taking part...though sadly less success than they are used to.

Never stop learning

Yeah...I know it's lifeboat week, and I'm duty bound to be in Swanage in the thick of it. However, for a variety of reasons, I have in fact ended up way up North in Scotland visiting family. Whilst here, I decided that I would try to escape and finally gain myself some sort of kayaking qualifications (BCU 3 star award).

To this end, I spent yesterday in the company of a certain Gordon Brown (no...not that one!), mostly upside down in the water, immediately under the new road bridge joining Skye to the mainland.

Gordon runs a company called Skyakadventures which is a Kayak guiding and coaching company based on the Isle of Skye. Gordon is rightly regarded as something of a Kayak guru and I have to say, I certainly felt yesterday that I was in the presence of some kind of 'Yoda' type character.
During the 8 or so hours I spent with Gordon (and fellow pupil Alan), I learnt more than I had ever thought possible about how to control my boat and myself out there on the water. Today I feel stiff and quite aware that I have used muscles which have not been used for some time. Also that I need to spend a great more time in my boat and out on the water. Fantastic!

So, for those of you with an interest in kayaking: if you are ever in the market for some coaching or guiding, make sure you look up Gordon and his partner Morag, I doubt that you could do any better. Thanks Gordon...

Do or do not. There is no try.
(Yoda)

Bonkers!

This is my wife, she is called Liz, she is half Scottish and half Swedish. Something about this curious genetic and cultural soup has left her afflicted with a mild sort of insanity. The latest manifestation of this has been a strange desire to swim long distances in the sea. Her latest plan is to swim from Swanage to Bournemouth during September!

Clearly she is utterly bonkers. However, if you would like to follow her progress in training, and during the actual event, you can do so here on her recently started Blog.

She is doing the swim to raise money for the Lewis Manning Hospice in Poole. This is a superb local hospice which provides palliative care for local residents with Cancer and other serious conditions. She has a 'Just Giving' page where she is aiming to raise £1000. Perhaps you could see if you can help her to reach this goal? If you feel inclined to do so you can find her page here.

Bonkers!

(Oh, did I forget to mention that a certain local lifeboatman has been drafted in to provide the rescue cover)?

Help. I need somebody. Help...

Each Saturday in August there are fireworks in Swanage organised by the Carnival committee. These are intended to continue the great work and fundraising done during Carnival week and raise further finds for local organisations. A week on Saturday (15th August) the collection will be in aid of the RNLI. For this to be truly successful we somehow need to find roughly 50 volunteers to assist us with shaking buckets. If, by any chance, you are reading this, will be in Swanage on the 15th August and would be willing to assist, can you please give Dave a ring at the boathouse (01929423237) and let him know. Ultimately the more people there are out there shaking buckets, the more money will be raised so why not give it a go?

If you are keen (and have let Dave know that you are available and willing to help) you will need to meet on the seafront by the Clock tower at 21:30. You will be finished by about 22:15 and can then come along for a fundraising pint and a dance to the Reptiles at Prince Albert Gardens!

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being 'round.
Help me get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?
(The Beatles - Help)

Taking it easy...

Last night's exercise was intended to be a quiet one so that the crew could meet together and plan in detail some of the logistics of lifeboat week. Both boats went to sea but not for a heavy-weight exercise...more an exercise in getting wet and checking that everything was as it should be on the ILB.

On completion we had an informal meeting and Martin had the excellent idea of providing a BBQ with steak baguettes and a beer or two. Altogether a great idea and as you can imagine...highly popular with the crew!

Regular blog reader, Simon Dubbin and his lovely family are down staying for a week or two in one of the Coastguard cottages. It's great to see them again and to be reminded that the Swanage Lifeboat family stretches much further than we often realise. I for one am constantly amazed by the extraordinary support that we get from folk. Humbling...

Back to base...

As we returned from yesterday's shout, those crew who had been left behind were finishing swapping over our own ILB which had just returned from it's refit.

After being offloaded from the truck into the water, it was motored round to our slipway, before being expertly driven back onto it's trolley by Tom in a virtuoso display of helmsmanship. Tonight it was taken to sea for a sea trial and by all accounts it performed very well.

Welcome back Jack!

By the way Gav, 'Stoical' is defined by Wikipedia as: Enduring pain and hardship without showing feeling or complaint. It stems from the Greek school of philosophy founded by Zeno who said; "a Stoic achieves happiness by submission to destiny."

M'aidez

Pronounced 'May day', is a french term meaning 'Help me'. It is derived from the French verb 'aider' which means 'to help'. A mayday situation is one in which a vessel, aircraft, vehicle, or person is in grave and imminent danger and requires immediate assistance. In maritime terms (and they seem to be under threat from certain quarters) a call of MAYDAY triggers the highest possible level of response from those who hear it. Hence the urgency of our launch today.

And the thing is with Lifeboat shouts, they are never expected. Just when you think all is quiet and everything is going according to plan something turns up out of the blue.

The plan for this morning, as it happens, was to make a shedload of jam sandwiches for my younger daughter's 5th birthday party. As it happens, this wasn't to be. Just as I was reading Eve's (7 years old) book with her, our pagers went off, and I found myself racing down to the boathouse.


And it turned out it was one of those rather odd shouts where you are out there, but nobody seems to understand exactly why! A MAYDAY call had been heard on channel 16 VHF by various parties, yet no one had comms with the MAYDAY casualty and no one had a firm position. Consequently we (and Beowulf, a passaging lifeboat and rescue 106) spent a rather fruitless few hours stooging about the channel looking for something or nothing.



Gav, as usual, managed to make an art-form of stoicism as he helmed during our close-in search of the cliffs from Anvil point to Chapman's pool.

And, when all is said and done, all that we found was this forlorn looking packing case, floating on it's lonesome, about a mile South-East (135 degrees) of St. Alhelm's head.

Let's hope that it was a hoax...

Here's to us, one more toast, and then well pay the bill.
Deep inside, both of us, can feel the autumn chill.
Birds of passage, you and me,
We fly instinctively.
When the summers over and the dark clouds hide the sun.
Neither you nor I'm to blame, when all is said and done.
(When all is said and done - ABBA)

All quiet

Consistency round here seems to be a bit of an issue just now. There has been little in the way of shout action of late but most crew have been busy with all sorts of Carnival stuff.

We won the 'It's a knock Out' competition, Daz and Steve swan incredibly well in the 'Bay Swim', I understand that we won the 'Pub Gig Racing Challenge' too.

Anyway, despite all that it has been quiet here on the blog due in part to Liz being on holiday for a week and me wanting to spend plenty of time in the real world with her and the kids!

Anyway, Lifeboat week is fast approaching and there is an exercise this Wednesday so I will try and b more diligent over the coming weeks.

Watch this space.

Bay Swim

Yesterday evening was the Carnival Bay swim. We have a good number of crew taking part in the Triathlon again this year so a fair few of them were out for a training race on Monday evening.

Steve pulled a surprise performance out of the bag and swam terrifically.

Liz also swam well and enjoyed the race.

Becky was there to watch and organise but didn't actually get into the water (we noticed Becky)!

Dan was also there supporting with his partner.

And who can forget little Daz, our star performer. Well done mate.

Rain on your parade

We just got away with it yesterday. On what is normally a fabulously sunny day in Swanage, the weather for the Carnival Day Parade was actually pretty dreary yesterday. Still, everyone turned out just the same, and there was a very strong showing from the lifeboat contingent.

Charlotte was mischievous as ever and (encouraged by Deasy of course) decided to climb into the collecting flag!

The kids did a great job of flying the flag and collecting the pennies in the ILB.

For once the crew were pleased to be wearing yellows!


I’m gonna rain on your parade.
No, I won’t take it again.
And I’ll keep raining, raining, raining over you.
(Duffy - Rain on your Parade)

There's no 'I' in teamwork....

but it turns out there is in 'Pile on'!

Yesterday was the annual 'It's a knockout competition' at the Swanage Carnival. The usual healthy competition between the RNLI and Swanage and Wareham rugby club was taken to an altogether new level. One of the lifeboat crew was hospitalised but hey...we won!

It was the usual suspects so well done lads and lasses. A good show all round.

Team RNLI even managed to make walking the plank look simple.

On completion the whole gang headed to the boatpark and went out into the middle of the bay for another great display from the Red Arrows. We all agreed...it must be about as much fun as a chap can have with his clothes on (assuming of course that they were fully clothed)?!

Salvamento Maritimo

Having spent a week in Spain just recently sailing with my father it was inevitable that at some point we would bump into the local lifesavers somewhere along the line. Luckily this happened but not at sea!

In Camarinas, a small Galician fishing harbour slightly to the east of Cape Finisterre, my father and I happened upon the local Salvamento Maritimo vessel, a fully crewed and permanently on call lifeboat. Carlos, photographed here with my old man was the deck-hand and seemed very content with his job.

The vessel itself was a copy of a Norwegian Lifeboat and was impressive, featuring jet drives, twin Caterpillar engines, aluminium hull and no less that 3 sleeping cabins! It was carpeted throughout...including in the spotless engine room.

As you would expect, her crew of 3 full-timers (and no volunteers) keep her in a spotless condition.

Once we reached A Coruna we also had a chance to visit the tomb of General Sir John Moore. Those of you who know your history will recall that he died during the peninsular wars in the battle for A Coruna on the 16th January 1809. His death was immortalised by the words of poet Charles Woolfe. Locally Sir John Moore is remembered and celebrated as a hero and the English are held in high regard as a consequence.

The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna

Charles Wolfe. 1791–1823

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light
And the lanthorn dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed
And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that 's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.

Then it went bang

was how the skipper of today's casualty described what had happened to his engine. He was right to be worried that this was followed by a large amount of black smoke too. So he did the correct thing, left the engine room hatch shut and called the coastguard. They called us which was how my bike ride was interrupted and I ended up going on a shout wearing a full suit of lycra! Not pretty...

Anyway, it was a straight-forward job to rig up the tow and pull him back into the bay where he is now sitting on our mooring. Hopefully the damage is not too extensive and he can soon be back in business again.

Stepping up

Last night we were short handed on the exercise for a variety of reasons. This always makes for an interesting time as there can be no passengers and inevitably people end up performing the role above what they normally do.
Skid helmed the boat for the majority of the exercise using both the primary and emergency steering. And a great job he did too learning how to anchor the boat as well as everything else.

Sam got stuck into a variety of seamanship evolutions such as emergency steering and anchoring and demonstrated just what she is capable of.

Matt took charge of the deck as second Cox'n, his responsibility was to talk each evolution through then stand back and observe it happen. He is a natural teacher and has an innate ability to instill confident in those he is instructing.

JFL...one of our newest recruits, naturally took everything in his stride and showed all the signs of becoming a very useful member of the crew in short order.

Of course the ILB was out too under the command of Gav who is the duty helmsman this week. By all accounts they had a useful exercise too and learnt much.

Meanwhile James Mack, Shi and I were down below conducting a very productive navigational exercise.

I was following the pack
all swallowed in their coats
with scarves of red tied ’round their throats
to keep their little heads
from fallin’ in the snow
And I turned ’round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
and turn the white snow red as strawberries
in the summertime

(Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes)

Hanging in there...

For some reason the shore crew were all laughing when we arrived back from Sunday evening's shout. After a while I spotted why! I can see that I am going to have to start chaining up my 'un-stealable' shout bike up.

Needle in a Haystack

At around 18.45 this evening we were paged to go round towards Anvil Point lighthouse to search for a Dog which had fallen over the cliff. The weather has been pretty fresh for the last few days so it was no surprise to find that it was pretty lumpy around the back side of the cliffs.


On this sort of job our presence is primarily required in case the Coastguard Cliff team choose to go over the cliff edge to recover the casualty. In these sort of conditions there is little we can do for a dog as conditions were too rough at the base of the cliff to make it prudent to even attempt to put any men ashore (of course...had the casualty been a person things might have been different).


In the circumstances we saw nothing of the dog and after a very thorough search using Mk1 eyeballs and binoculars saw no sign of the poor animal.


So, once the cliff team had had a final look over the edge we returned home for a good washdown and then off home in the hope that the Sunday roast was in the oven still and not in the bin.

Approaching fast . . .

Lifeboat Week 2009 is now a little over 4 weeks away. Today we took delivery of our car/house/shop window stickers.

If you'd like one pop into the Lifeboat Shop in The Square, the Lifeboat Station or just download one from [ here ], print it out and pop it in your window.

What a relief

Today our ILB (D-613 'Jack Cleare') has gone off for refit. This used to happen every 18 months but after she's had this refit it will be extended to every 2 years.

The refits are carried out at the RNLI's Inshore Lifeboat Centre (ILC) in Cowes. If you're really lucky you might even see the refit happening on the new ILC webcams.

RNLI Depot Transport brought a relief boat (D-610 'Catterick') complete with pod and engine so that our boat can go back complete. This means that the electronics in the pod and the engine can all be serviced at the same time.

The refit is planned to take 2 to 3 weeks so hopefully Jack Cleare will be back in time for Lifeboat Week.

Both boats are out on exercise tonight so the crew will be giving the relief boat a run to make sure that she performs well.

Thanks to Kev & Gav for their help (and doughnuts!)