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Friday, 28 November 2008 Labels: AGM, Martin, Neil, Robin


Whilst at work yesterday the ALB went out on service at lunchtime. Martin ended up panicking slightly as he had yet to write his speech for the AGM. As I wasn't there I'll let Steve tell the story:

With Swanage's All Weather Lifeboat (ALB) in Poole for repairs it was the Relief Lifeboat 'Peggy & Alex Caird' that was called into action yesterday.

Portland Coastguard requested that the lifeboat launch to the assistance of a 35' yacht that had suffered catastrophic steering failure (the steering wheel fell off!) in the tidal race off St Albans Head. The lifeboat launched and met up with the yacht about 0.5Nm SE of Anvil Point. A towline was passed across and the slow tow against the strong ebb tide commenced, complicated by the yachts rudder being stuck to starboard. After looking at the weather forecast it was decided to tow the yacht to Poole as there was a possibility of NE wind overnight. Once the yacht was secured alongside Poole Quay the lifeboat was released to return to Swanage.

The good news is Martin's speech was every bit as good as it usually is...
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Friday, November 28, 2008 No comments: Labels: AGM, Martin, Shout



It's our A.G.M. tonight at the Pines Hotel in Swanage. This is a fairly reflective occasion where our Chairman Robin Tiller, our Treasurer, our Coxswain and various others will spend time talking about the year gone past. Perhaps because of it's backwards-looking nature, many of the crew find it a fairly baffling event. You see, most of us are more accustomed to looking forwards than looking back. By our nature we are inclined to train for the next shout rather than dwell on those from last year. We're more interested in planning next years fundraising than analysing last years.

Still, we all turn up year after year...it might be something to do with the bar?!
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Thursday, November 27, 2008 No comments: Labels: AGM, Robin


Questions, questions... Here's another recent question:

Hi John
I was just wondering if all Lifeboat Coxswains can drive all classes of Boat or whether they are only allowed to drive there own class. You sometimes say that one of the crew brought a different class from Poole for exercise are all crews able to do this is they are based near a Lifeboat 'Depot'?

The answer is pretty simple really. No, Coxswains are not 'qualified' to drive all classes of lifeboat (though I have no doubt that they are capable of doing so). To be qualified to Cox a particular lifeboat it is necessary to go to sea in that class with an Inspector and be 'passed out' on that class (at least that is how my memory serves me....correct me if I am wrong someone).

So, are other crews able to borrow lifeboats and other craft from their local depot? Well, yes and no. Ultimately, if they can show a need, either training or PR, and have someone qualified to cox it, then the request would be looked on favourably I'm sure.

So how do we manage it? Well, our second Cox'n Rob works at HQ Poole. He is the Fleet Operations Manager (Lifeboat test-pilot to you and me) and as such is qualified to Cox every class of lifeboat in fleet. It is his job to take these boats to sea and use them on a daily basis. So when it fits in with our training or fundraising activities it is not uncommon for him to bring boats over from Poole.

Of course Odin, which we used in a recent exercise, is not a lifeboat at all but a test-bed for a variety of pieces of kit. As such it really is Rob's responsibility.
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Tuesday, November 25, 2008 2 comments: Labels: HQ, Rob

Monday, 24 November 2008

Maud Smith Friday, 21 November 2008 

Avon Commercial Inflatable Dinghies

2 available at £250 boat only

Wish me luck...
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Friday, November 21, 2008 2 comments: Thursday, 20 November 2008

Blown apart

Last night's exercise was a medical exercise created and run by Gav. He'd put a tremendous amount of effort into it and produced a very realistic scenario using some excellent casualties, a fishing boat and 'Dead Fred'. The situation which greeted us as we arrived on-scene was of a fishing boat that had blown up. The skipper was distressed but not visibly injured. There were two obvious casualties; Kim above was burnt to the neck and face, while Emma below seemed to have a rather nasty wound to her arm (bit of it had fallen off)! Being honest we were all rather rusty. Assessments of the casualties were made but a few bits were missed out and, sadly for Emma, immediate steps to stem her blood loss weren't taken at the assessment stage. However, that's how it goes, scenarios aren't the real thing and I'm darned sure we'd have done the right thing in a real situation! It was generally our more recent crewmembers who did the first aiding last night and one real benefit was that we discovered that we truly have an impressive depth of skill across the whole crew. We then had a very thorough and skillful wash-up conducted by Gav and John in the crewroom. Everyone had their say and I think the consensus was that we'd done alright on balance.

Rob also made us sit a multiple choice theory paper to assess our level of 'Skill Fade'. I'm happy to report that no one dropped more than one mark. All good...
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Thursday, November 20, 2008 No comments: Labels: 1st Aid, Gav, John Deas, Rob


Please mind the gap...

Mart asked:

I'd never noticed before, but do you have 2 removable rails to allow you to close the doors? I'd never really paid attention to it before now, but I can see now that your slipway leaves above floor height so to speak. I think all the others I have seen the slipway is level with the floor.

Well spotted Mart, we do indeed. A long time ago the old pulling lifeboats were launched on a cobbled slipway at ground level. With the arrival of motor lifeboats the slip was raised but a gap had to be left for people to pass along the path in front of the Boathouse. Hence the orange timbers.

I tried hard to find some reasonable photos showing this and failed. Anyway, here are a couple which sort of show what you are talking about. Here the boat is being re-housed in the dark. You can just make out the timbers bridging the gap. This too shows the timber in place and crossing the gap. This shot gives a rough idea of how high and wide the gap is.

Incidentally, it wouldn't matter much if the timbers weren't there. The gap is only 5 or 6 feet wide and the boat is 38ft long and reasonably light at each end so unlikely to tumble into the gap!

Anyway, thanks for the question Mart, any others?
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Tuesday, November 18, 2008 2 comments: Labels: ALB, Boathouse

Sunday, 16 November 2008

Living with the unexpected...

There I was, just arrived at the tip with the mornings labours in the back of the land rover, when my pager went off. So I did a quick turn around (and grabbed a shiny pink bike I'd spotted for one of the girls), then headed down to the boathouse. On arrival I was greeted with groans about the fact that it was a shout to a RIB stuck on a pot-buoy and 17 miles out into the channel at that! It took us an hour and 20 minutes to get to where we had been led to believe the boat was (another story there), then a further 20 minutes to actually locate the vessel before we could begin our work.

Of the three persons on-board, one was suffering pretty badly with sea-sickness so we decided to take all three off and put a crewman aboard. All routine stuff so far. After a bit of manoeuvring we gave up with the grapnel and decided to set up a tow to give the boat a pull to see what would happen...as luck would have it, it came free!

And in a nut shell, that is how Matt and I managed to find ourselves 17 miles out into the channel this afternoon heading North towards Swanage doing 37 knots in a 7 metre RIB with the broadest of grins on our faces! Needless to say, the journey home was a dam sight more fun than the journey out.

I am of course delighted to report that all three persons on the vessel were returned to the boathouse fit and well. Their boat will remain on our lifeboat mooring overnight. Meanwhile, they were chauffeured to a local hotel by my wife Liz. All part of the service!

If you want to read the grown up version of this story, try here.

(No picture I'm afraid...I didn't happen to take my camera to the tip!)
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Sunday, November 16, 2008 2 comments: Labels: Matt, Shout


Into the blue

So the boathouse floor is coming on. This picture gives some idea of what it will look like. It's certainly much bluer than the old floor. The guys spent time today doing the coving around the slipway pillars. They also gave the whole floor a coat of primer and a light sprinkling of grit.

Cast my boat out to the ocean
And set it sails to the wind
Gentle breeze blowing into my heart
I'm alive in this gentle world
A life carefree

(Thanks to Dave again for the photo and Mary Black for the lyrics)
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Thursday, November 13, 2008 1 comment: Labels: Boathouse, Dave



Is the name of the game this week. As part of the maintenance programme the boathouse floor is being re-newed with a special non-slip coating. By day the boats need to be moved outside to let the workmen get access to the floor. A fellow with a large sanding machine has skimmed the surface to allow the coating to get a key. Then another fellow with quite literally the largest hoover in the world has sucked up all of the dust and mess (we hope). And finally, later on in the week, this blue coloured stuff will be laid down onto the floor.

Tread lightly...

(Thanks Dave for the photos)
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Wednesday, November 12, 2008 No comments: Labels: Boathouse, Maintenance


At the going down of the sun... In 1942 the New York Times said that 'even in peace-time the long coast of the British Isles is stormy and treacherous. In time of war...the work of the life-savers is a continuous test of skill and courage.'

Today we remember the soldiers, sailors and airmen who have taken part in armed conflicts for our defence. We might also remember the Lifeboatmen who put to sea to assist those who were in peril at sea during the dark years of the two world wars.

As an example, 19 lifeboats took part in the evacuation of British Soldiers from Dunkirk. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of men owed their lives to the brave acts of the heroic crews of the lifeboats. The Commander of the destroyer HMS Icarus said at the time, 'The magnificent behaviour of the crew of the Margate life-boat who, with no thought of rest, brought off load after load of soldiers from Dunkirk, under continuous shelling, bombing and aerial machine-gun fire, will be an inspiration to us as long as we live.'

In a typically British statement, the second in command of the small boats at Dunkirk said, 'I hope to have you (the lifeboat crews) with me at my next evacuation.'

We will remember them...

(Read 'Storm on the Waters' by Charles Vince)
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Tuesday, November 11, 2008 No comments: 
Farewell and hello...

So our Chairman of four years, Sir Jock Slater, has today stood down (I'm assuming that this was planned)? We haven't seen much of him in Swanage but a quick browse on google shows that he has been pretty active visiting other stations around the coast. No doubt he has had to sit through more than his fair share of meetings too. So thanks very much Sir, we salute you...

He sent us this departing message:

As I stand down today after nine years as a trustee and over four years as chairman, I send my heartfelt thanks and good wishes to all members of the RNLI family - lifeboat men and women, lifeguards, those in front line support and those who raise the funds. I pay tribute to the permanent staff who keep the show on the road and to our thousands of volunteers without whom the RNLI would not exist.

I know that the Institution will go from strength to strength in the years ahead.


Jock Slater

6th November 2008

He is superseded by another retired Naval Officer, Admiral the Lord Boyce GCB OBE DL. Oddly, he doesn't seem to have a first name, so we shall have to remain on more formal terms than we did with Sir Jock. Now this Admiral/Lord has had a seriously impressive Naval career, read his Biography:

Lord Boyce joined the Royal Navy in 1961. He commanded three submarines and the Submarine Sea Training Squadron and was also an Anti Submarine Warfare specialist. He commanded the frigate HMS BRILLIANT, was Director of the Naval Staff and Senior Naval Officer Middle East. He was promoted to the Flag List in 1991 and was subsequently Flag Officer Sea Training, Flag Officer Surface Flotilla, Commander in Chief Naval Home Command and Second Sea Lord and Commander in Chief Fleet. During this period he was knighted and also held a variety of senior NATO Commands. He became First Sea Lord in 1998, Chief of Defence Staff at the beginning of 2001 and retired in May 2003. He was elevated to the peerage in June 2003, and appointed Lord Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Port, and Constable of Dover Castle, in 2004. Lord Boyce is a keen sportsman, a Freeman of the City of London, an Elder Brother of Trinity House, and a Knight of St John and is involved in a number of charities, organisations and associations, which includes being President of St John Ambulance (London District), Trustee of National Maritime Museum, and Colonel Commandant of the Special Boat Service.

Judging from his current list of responsibilities he has a higher tolerance of meetings than I do! Baron Boyce...welcome.
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Friday, November 07, 2008 No comments: 
So Mart asked... What made you want to become involved with the lifeboat, and how did you become involved. Were you always boat crew, or did you start helping in other ways?

Well, the answer to the first question is in this picture really. I was brought up in a small fishing village in Yorkshire called Runswick bay. The village was a lifeboat village and all of us young lads were in awe of the boat and it's crew. Of course things change and at 4 a.m. on 1st July, 1978, we stood on the beach and watched the lifeboat put to sea for the last time. After 112 years service to fishermen, sailors and holidaymakers, the lifeboat era had come to an end. So for most of my childhood I remember the boathouse being used by the ex mechanic of the lifeboat, Bill Cole, as his fishing shed where he stored his boat Patricia and his David Brown tractor. However, I still wanted to be a lifeboatman and couldn't pass the boathouse without catching a wiff of its intoxicating smell and dreaming of what it would be like to put to sea on a stormy night in a lifeboat. In due course the villagers decided that a local rescue facility was needed for the summer months and so the Runswick Bay Rescue Boat was born. This small rib was, and is still, housed in the old tractor shed adjacent to the old Lifeboat house. Amongst others, my father crewed this boat in the early days when home from sea, and indeed I too spent some time on the crew as a youngster. This came to an end however when I left home to go to sea.

And so, when I arrive in Swanage in 1999, it seemed obvious that I should show my face in the boathouse and see if it might be possible to join the crew. Luckily both Bonz (then Mechanic) and Chris Haw (then Cox'n) seemed to think that this was a reasonable proposition and the rest as they say...
Posted by lifeboatjohn at Wednesday, November 05, 2008 1 comment: 
Do you want to come? Anonymous asked this question: Labels: ALB, Crew, ILB, Shout

Monday, 3 November 2008

Thomas Gray Silver medal Labels: 1st Aid, Darren, Paul Savage, Sam, Ty

