Clacton and Walton Lifeboats

[14K478]

Not the “bad guy” - we just asked what you thought the solution would be to maintain a safe ALB berth at Walton? Did you have a solution?

And I replied that the beach is much flatter at Walton than it is at Clacton, which is why the pier at Walton is longer than the pier at Clacton, because they were both built as steamer piers for the paddle steamer service from the Thames. Both piers had to get to a point where the paddle steamer could come alongside. Walton Pier was lengthened to make this possible.

And here we have the paddle steamer "London Belle" leaving, according to the source, Walton Pier, in the 1920s. It looks as if she has landed beer as well as people.



If as it seems the RNLI can beach launch a D class at Walton then presumably they can beach launch any other beach launch type of boat there. The reason given by the RNLI is that the boathouse is too small, not anything to do with safety. Why not build a bigger boat house?

 

[Stork_III]

Behind a paywall - has anybody got access to copy & paste the text?

Volunteer told to ‘resign or face sack’ for criticising RNLI management

Philip Oxley, 75, was sacked as chairman of the Walton and Frinton Lifeboat Station




An RNLI volunteer with 57 years of service was told by bosses to resign or face the sack, it has been claimed.
Philip Oxley, 75, joined Walton and Frinton lifeboat station at Walton-on-the-Naze, in Essex, at the age of 17 and hails from a staunchly seafaring family, with his late father serving there from 1960 to 1980 and his 55-year-old son dedicating much of his life to the rescue charity.
But he now feels “devastated” after he and his son were forced out, despite three generations of the Oxley family harbouring 114 years of service.
It is the latest row to hit the charity as it marked its 200th anniversary on Monday, having saved more than 145,000 lives and now covering almost 480 lifeboat stations and beaches across Britain and Ireland.
The charity has faced a series of current and historical claims of acrimony at stations, bullying and a toxic management culture in recent days.
The Walton and Frinton station has been sent into disarray by controversial plans to replace the 48-foot Tamar-class lifeboat, which has capacity for 120 casualties, with a D-class dinghy, which has capacity for just six casualties and cannot tow other vessels.
Mr Oxley was highly critical of the move, which led to RNLI bosses telling him he was being “stood down” for breaching the charity’s volunteer code of conduct, and that the relationship between them had “broken down irreconcilably”, according to a letter seen by the BBC.
“Because I was so critical they asked me to resign or be sacked, and I wasn’t going to resign after 57 years,” he said.

‘It’s been my life’​

Mr Oxley told The Telegraph: “I feel devastated, I suppose. I am very disappointed they’ve not listened to us. I feel very lost and very disappointed. It’s been my life, really.”
He said the change would leave rescuers unable to attend distress calls in all weather conditions for the first time in the station’s 140-year history. However, the RNLI says an all-weather lifeboat would remain seven miles down the coast at Clacton.
The family has also been hit with a second blow at the station, as Mr Oxley’s son Stewart, 55, was stood down by bosses last June as lifeboat operations manager after an internal review found he had breached the volunteers’ code of conduct. He, too, had been vocal in criticising the boat replacement.
The crew’s coxswain and four other long-serving rescuers have also walked away from the station.
“I feel that the RNLI is very corporate now,” Mr Oxley said. “There’s no maritime background at the top. When I first joined it was always very personal. When we would go to headquarters they knew our Christian names and we knew them. Now it is all very hard and very sharp.”
An RNLI spokesman said the D-class dinghy saved more lives in 2022 than any other type of vessel and modelling showed it would improve the response for that stretch of coast.
Ross Barraclough, who leads the East region for the charity, told the BBC: “We’ve been engaged with the local council to explore viable options to site an all-weather lifeboat, but there’s nowhere appropriate in that area that would make financial sense for the charity, and make best use of our supporters’ donations.”

 

[Juan Twothree]

If as it seems the RNLI can beach launch a D class at Walton then presumably they can beach launch any other beach launch type of boat there. The reason given by the RNLI is that the boathouse is too small, not anything to do with safety. Why not build a bigger boat house?

The bigger the boat, the deeper you have to push it out across the beach to get it to float.

A Shannon has to be pushed out a lot further than a D class. And you've already said yourself that the beach at Walton is flatter than at Clacton.

That's not in itself an insurmountable problem, however coupled with the boathouse issue at Walton, the pendulum swings very much towards Clacton.

A Shannon, plus the tractor required for launching it, is very large and very tall. It is much easier to accommodate a D class (the boat itself can operate out of a shipping container if necessary) than the huge edifice required for a Shannon.

And even if you've decided to spend the money on a Shannon boathouse, there's still the problem of where to put it on Walton seafront.

The RNLI, in conjunction with the crew and the local council, have been looking at this for at least 8 years to my knowledge.

Maybe they've missed something, and you might be able to help them.

Any ideas?

 

[dunedin]

And I replied that the beach is much flatter at Walton than it is at Clacton, which is why the pier at Walton is longer than the pier at Clacton, because they were both built as steamer piers for the paddle steamer service from the Thames. Both piers had to get to a point where the paddle steamer could come alongside. Walton Pier was lengthened to make this possible.

And here we have the paddle steamer "London Belle" leaving, according to the source, Walton Pier, in the 1920s. It looks as if she has landed beer as well as people.



If as it seems the RNLI can beach launch a D class at Walton then presumably they can beach launch any other beach launch type of boat there. The reason given by the RNLI is that the boathouse is too small, not anything to do with safety. Why not build a bigger boat house?

Thanks. Presumably RNLI have looked at the costs and feasibility of building a large new boathouse, ramp etc to house a beach launched ALB plus tractor (generally several million quid) and decided it makes more sense to move the ALB to a location just 7 miles away. The D class being light and nimble is ideal to fill the gap for swimmers etc in trouble nearby,
I have seen quite a few questionable actions by RNLI senior management - but this doesn’t look like one of them.

 

[Juan Twothree]

But it's not an ALB "remaining" at Clacton as the article says.
It's a new boat, to replace the Walton ALB. That's an important difference.

 

[14K478]

Factor in that the present Walton boat was just about half paid for by a donation intended to buy a new boat for Walton, and there is another dimension.

Is the Institution desperately short of Tamars? Why not leave the Walton boat where it is? It would provide a back up, because any service in the outer estuary can take a long time, even with a 25 knot boat. There's at least one recent case where the (Walton) lifeboat was out for 22 hours and ended up in Belgium!

 

[Juan Twothree]

Why not leave the Walton boat where it is?

I feel like we're going round in circles here, but here goes.......

Walton Lifeboat currently lives in Titchmarsh Marina. It takes the best part of half an hour to reach the open sea, and by the time it does so it is only 2 miles from Harwich Lifeboat Station.

It used to moor in a pen at the end of Walton Pier, but the pier itself is in a very poor state of repair, and is closed to the public.

Whilst the RNLI has the money to repair the pier, any repair would only be temporary.
Plus they don't even own it.

 

[14K478]

I feel like we're going round in circles here, but here goes.......

Walton Lifeboat currently lives in Titchmarsh Marina. It takes the best part of half an hour to reach the open sea, and by the time it does so it is only 2 miles from Harwich Lifeboat Station.

It used to moor in a pen at the end of Walton Pier, but the pier itself is in a very poor state of repair, and is closed to the public.

Whilst the RNLI has the money to repair the pier, any repair would only be temporary.
Plus they don't even own it.

Yes, I do know that. I indicated above that I know the area. By "Leave it where it is" I meant "Build the new beach launch facility at Clacton but just leave the Walton Tamar as it is, moored in the Twizzle" ( which is where it always was - yes, fifty years ago - in strong Easterlies)..

I haven't been saying "Don't go ahead at Clacton" I have just been saying "Why take a boat away when it has a strong support base locally and can be kept going at moderate expense?"

 

[14K478]

“
And even if you've decided to spend the money on a Shannon boathouse, there's still the problem of where to put it on Walton seafront.

The RNLI, in conjunction with the crew and the local council, have been looking at this for at least 8 years to my knowledge.

Maybe they've missed something, and you might be able to help them.

Any ideas?”

Well, If you were looking eight years ago, you were not looking very hard.

This was available:

 

[14K478]

The redundant Coast Guard building, right on the beach.

But you knew that, of course, didn’t you?

Less smartarsing might help you to persuade people, perhaps, that your organisation isn’t quite as rotten at the top as it seems to be to rather a lot of people on whom, ultimately, you depend.

You have done a fine job of converting me from a lifelong supporter of the RNLI into someone who now thinks that the lot of you should be “let go”.

 

[Juan Twothree]

The redundant Coast Guard building, right on the beach.

But you knew that, of course, didn’t you?

Less smartarsing might help you to persuade people, perhaps, that your organisation isn’t quite as rotten at the top as it seems to be to rather a lot of people on whom, ultimately, you depend.

Yes, I know exactly what it is thank you. I've spent quite a bit of time in there, obviously up until Thames CG closed down.

I believe that was one of the possible sites discussed between the RNLI and the council.

 

[14K478]

Reckon you could have got your Shannon, launching equipment and tractor on that site?

 

[14K478]

You have now told anyone who reads this that RNLI HQ had a solution, but decided to ignore it.

 

[14K478]

This is the place that we are talking about. Fine sea view…

 

[Boathook]

I think you're just being silly now.

Any decision to remove a boat and replace it with another type is based on a whole load of factors, as I've mentioned previously.
Not everything is to do with saving money, there are practical considerations too.

If you want to take the argument to its nth degree, Clacton is losing its 35 knot Atlantic, being replaced by a 25 knot Shannon.

Where are all the public protests, petitions and mass resignations about that?


The perceived gap between Sheerness and Walton has never been an issue. If it was, the RNLI would have put an ALB somewhere, although options would have been limited. Burnham maybe?

The old ALB at Clacton, replaced by an Atlantic in the 80s, only ever did 9 knots, as did Walton back in those days. Sheerness had a Waveney, doing14 knots, from 1974.

Everything now is 25 knots minimum, and as Motor Sailor has pointed out, having the "northern" ALB at Clacton rather than Walton only improves the situation.

If you want to talk about gaps, West Mersea and Whitstable only opened in 1963, Burnham in 1966, and Sheerness in 1969.

So back in the day, there were no lifeboats between Southend, Margate and Clacton, all of which had 9 knot boats back then.

That's a very long time to get to someone in distress.

The improvements to lifeboat cover in the Thames Estuary over the last 50 years have been huge.

Wasn't the Whitstable boat a D class 'paid' for by Blue Peter ?

 

[nortada]

You have done a fine job of converting me from a lifelong supporter of the RNLI into someone who now thinks that the lot of you should be “let go”.

Sorry to read this, I will always be a supporter of the RLNI at grassroots (volunteer level).

The real tragedy is that the poor man-management by the higher echelons of the RNLI is creating a situation whereby the charity will lose public support (and funding).

Rightly, the Walton lifeboat crew is held in very high esteem by the local community so a perceived attack on them creates negativity across the community.

In this case I suspect it has gone too far but I hope that the RNLI will lean from this and treat future situations with more tact and diplomacy.

By the way, I moor in the Walton Backwaters and can do 25-30 knots. My mooring is totally protected and I can access open water at all states of the tide. At full power from my mooring to the Pye End Buoy would take about 15 minutes. At most states of the tide I could round Stone Point and head direct across the sands and be in open water in far less time so reaction times from within the Backwaters would not be a big issue.

But this is not what this is all about.

 

[Boathook]

This is the place that we are talking about. Fine sea view…

I suspect that it will be sold for great profit and the RNLI wouldn't be able to warrant spending that type of money to purchase a bit of it.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Wasn't the Whitstable boat a D class 'paid' for by Blue Peter ?

It was a D class, but not one of the Blue Peter boats.

 

[WFA]

Adjacent to the Thames GC site on the Walton sea front is the old life boat station museum.
What surprises me is that RNLI management did it's sums with full due diligence etc and still went ahead building a dock extension to Walton Pier. What's changed - was the pier in good repair with an annual maintenance budget locked in at that time?
Move only a decade or say forward and the slightest whiff of questions from the local volunteers to RNLI management ends in acrimony and the collapse of trust and support in both directions.
This says to me modern short term management practice which time and time again simply pushes foreseeable problems down the line to never never land.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Move only a decade or say forward and the slightest whiff of questions from the local volunteers to RNLI management ends in acrimony and the collapse of trust and support in both directions.
View attachment 173483

The pen berth at the end of the pier was constructed in 2004.

It wasn't just questions from the local volunteers - the RNLI always involve the crew in any future plans, as I've mentioned before.

The crew and station management accepted back in 2022 that the situation with the Tamar was untenable, and that they would be getting an ILB. All the acrimony was over whether it should be an Atlantic or a D class.
I don't know what happened to decide on a D class, but again it might have been due to the boathouse size required.
Although much smaller than a Shannon, an Atlantic needs a "bendy" tractor to launch it across a beach, whereas a D class can be launched with a quad bike.

I used to regularly see the chap who was trying to secure the old CG building for the RNLI.
However, against expectations, the MCA wanted to retain it at that time, as the ship surveyors and Walton CRT were still based there.
I don't see the person concerned these days, so don't know exactly what happened after that, but I do know that the RNLI were talking to the council about where they could build a boathouse.