Lifeboat docusoap. V Long

billmacfarlane

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Meridian TV have a docusoap on Friday evenings about the Poole lifeboat. On Friday there were 5 "dramatic rescues" for our delectation and amusement. Apologies for the last cynical sentence - judge for yourselves.
Rescue 1: Lifeboat receives a call saying that a boat is in trouble in Studland Bay. Lifeboat investigates and finds large Princess aground with no-one aboard. Skipper is found in tender trying to turn bows into the wind to motor off. He was anchored in Studland Bay for the night checked the forecast which was OK , the wind swung east during the night swinging the boat round and aground. Skipper accepted offer of help , lifeboat towed Princess off and put a man on board as skipper was tired.
Rescue2: Lifeboat returning from a call is waved over by a woman in Mirror dinghy holding on to another boat moored to a buoy. She was on the boat with her 2 children , not particularly young children and after sailing in to the harbour found herself getting "tired" and on seeing the lifeboat called it over. The wind looked like a F4/5 and in the background you could see the shore. The woman could easily have hoisted a bit of jib and got the dinghy ashore. Lifeboat tows dinghy back to her trolley.
Rescue 3: Further up the channel the lifeboat stopped to look at a dinghy that was capsized with 2 crew in the water , one older man and a younger one , could be father and son. Lifeboat offered assistance which was refused. Lifeboat waits for 5 minutes and offers help again. Older man accepts and lifeboat takes older man aboard and helps to right dinghy. Older man says perhaps he was tired. There were plenty of other boats about .
Rescue 4: Lifeboat called out after somebody notices red flare in Poole Harbour. Lifeboat searches area and eventually notices boat in evening twilight aground about 200 metres from Salterns Marina aground just outside the bouyed channel. The skipper of the boat , looked like a T24 , admitted he set off the flare. The weather was calm. The skipper said he couldn't use the VHF as despite the fact that the previous skipper said that the VHF radio worked , he found that he couldn't use it.
Resue 5: A squall passed through a dinghy racing fleet just outside Poole Harbour causing chaos with lots of capsized dinghies and the lifeboat helped right them.
All of these were presented in the "talking-heads , dramatic-music-in-the-background" style.
My own view is that rescue 1 warranted intervention as the skipper was tired and not thinking straight. Rescue 2 could have been averted by the mother , while understandably stressed by having her children with her , could easily have hoisted a scrap of jib and run the boat to shore. It might not be where she wanted to land but her and her family would have been out of her perceived distress. Rescue 3 was a great PR exercise but hardly a rescue. The lifeboat did what myself and I suspect many of us do that is to have a look at a capsized dinghy whilst passing and check that all is OK. My opinion on rescue 4 is by and large unprintable. All I can say is that I was brought up in a different school of thought i.e if you run aground and while you are in no danger , you put a kedge out to deeper water , put the kettle on before you fall over and simply wait for the tide. Oh yes and you put a towel over your boat's name on the stern in case anyone recognises you. In rescue 5 , the rescue boats would have taken longer to help all the dinghies without the lifeboat being there. Er , anyone still reading this ? I hope I've described it well enough for comment. My own opinions are as follows:
I think only 2 out of these rescues should have involved the lifeboat. It would be interesting to see if they were all statistically classified as rescues. I'm saying for one minute that they shouldn't have helped with rescues 2 and 3 but if they hadn't almost certainly someone else would have. There were plenty of boats about. I would have severely bollocked the skipper of rescue 4. Is there a case for charging for a tow for such cases ? The RNLI are against it as they say it might discourage people from calling them out but after seeing the programme I'm not sure. Lastly it looks like a lot of people regard the lifeboat as some sort of AA service . I belong to the old school who regard calling the lifeboat out as a last resort when you and your crew's life are in danger not merely when you are inconvenienced or uncomfortable. Maybe Seastart will take some of these calls off them ? Comments appreciated.
 

tcm

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Didn't see it, but all agreed. Either seastart, or of course, semi-enforced rnli donation upon buying boat, or monster corporate donations from boatbuilders with sales patter for novices ("just use a mobile phone") at LBS.
 

bedouin

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You make a number of good points; but where do you see the harm?

In response I would say that it is in no one's interest to reduce the number of lifeboat launches - particularly not the sort of 'soft' launches you mention. I'm sure both RNLI and MCA like to keep the number of causalties rescued up to justify their existence - it is after all very good PR. Individual lifeboat teams get paid for their time, and probably enjoy the practice and again it helps justify their existence.

It's no coincidence that they chose to make the documentary about the Poole lifeboats - the stats in the recent issue of 'Lifeboat' show that it was the most active lifeboat in the country during June/July last year. During that time of year the weather tends to be very predicable so the vast majority of launches will be 'avoidable'.

On of the things I learn from the reports of the rescues in The Lifeboat (and other mags) is how quickly a situation can deteriorate from apparently safe to life-threatening.

Like yourself, I believe that I should be self-sufficient, and that the lifeboat should be called as a last resort; but I also wonder if that means that I wouldn't tend to call the lifeboat too late. I'm sure more lives have been lost by over-confidence in one's ability to retrieve the situation than by calling the lifeboat out too early.
 

ParaHandy

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I think you are v. wrong in asserting that RNLI want to keep launches up. The RNLI costs an extraordinary amount of money (£99m pa - 10 times the French SNMS) partially through supporting boats costing £1.8m each which virtually guarantee rescue under any condition. In my view this may create a sense of well-being amongst many sea-farers (and perhaps avoids questioning the seaworthiness of many craft). Such expenditure can not continue indefinitely and, I think, the RNLI realise this which is why they, apparently alone amongst all involved, attempt to redress the balance with their Sea-Safety checks. Sadly, these checks reach the people who are conscious of their responsibilities but not those that it is really intended for.

We are very fortunate in the UK in having the RNLI and the scenes depicted (and mildy castigated by Bill) are typical - over 50% of rescues are to pleasure craft.
 

Fin

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I can understand exactly why you're astounded at what are described as "rescues" in situations where RNLI assistance has been given. However, as ever there is more than one side to a story.

First, your own interpretation of a situation is modified by your experience (from your bio it is clear you are very experienced) and the frame of mind with which you view a situation. Sitting in a small dinghy with two small kids in a F4/5 puts you in a different frame of mind for assessing a situation than sitting watching a docusoap in a comfortable chair. Yes, it would be instinctive for somebody with sufficient experience to hoist a bit of jib and sail to shore. Less instinctive for someone who is possibly on the verge of exhaustion and/or panic and grateful for any assistance coming their way.

Another point to consider is that it is the decision of the coastguard to call the lifeboat and then the decision of the relevant station Hon. Sec. to authorise the launch. I have know a situation where the skipper of a yacht has reported their situation to the coastguard (for prudent safety reasons) to be told 10 minutes later that the lifeboat is on it's way. The skipper never made a request for a launch, the decision was taken by somebody else. Result, skipper very embarrased for the hassle he caused but no loss of life. Coastguard and RNLI would much rather a simple one hour call-out in daylight to a non-critical incident than for a situation to deteriorate due to weather/darkness/fatigue/... into a 6-hour mission.

A final point is that in my experience, RNLI crews tend not to be judgemental of those who they rescue. If somebody needs their help, then it is because a situation as got beyond their level of experience and they are running out of options - or a third party has intervened and made a report to to HMCG (flares/capsized boat/airbed/... spotted). Suppose in any of those incidents you describe there had been loss of life; one of the first questions would have been, "didn't anybody think to call the lifeboat?"

good sailing

fin
 

robp

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I saw that too. Conversely to the "don't put people off calling for help" school of thought, I'd be worried that people new to boating will think that this was the norm. Also, I'd hate to think that the red flare call could have resulted in less help where it was really needed!
 

billmacfarlane

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Lifeboats always respond to a red flare , quite rightly. They can't know in advance what the situation is until they get to the boat in trouble. I think in this case the boat in distress , basically wasn't , but of course they weren't to know.
 

billmacfarlane

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In the programme the lifeboatman were very non judgemental , almost phlegmatic. I also had a mate who phoned the coastguard as a safety measure as he was taking in water and requesting a pump to be made available at his destination port but specifically requesting not to send a lifeboat as he knew what the problem was and had the water flow under control ( leaky stern gland ). Before he knew it the lifeboat appeared and offered him a tow at a considerably higher speed than he could have sailed. He was of course very grateful , even more greatful to see the pump when he arrived.
 

Miker

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I didn't see it. Probably not on Granada but I think that your comments are a bit harsh. As has been said, the lady was in distress and probably in a state of panic. The older man was obviously tired or he would have righted the dinghy before then, and a possible tragedy was fortuitously averted.
When my mast collapsed I thought that I was coping and was surprised that a passing ferry alerted the RNLI. However, looking back it was the correct action as it got me back to the marina before the tide turned and the lock gates shut. All I suffered was a red face in front of a crowd of onlookers. I have now joined the RNLI!
 

billmacfarlane

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As a quick ( and very short ) PS , my cynicism was not directed against the RNLI , far from it , and yes they have helped me once , or any of the people they were involved with , but against the programme makers who ( I thought ) were trying to make a drama out of very scant material. But I suppose that's television.
 

Bergman

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I think you are right Bill.

They will make a drama of the most mundane events - good news is no news.

The worrying thing is that this seems to be another in a long series of press articles and television programmes that appear to show sailing as being a pastime carried out by incompetents who invariably are only saved from their own folly by the rescue services.

Am I paranoid?

Or is this part of a scheme to ultimately license (and of course tax) sailing and boating - for our own good naturally.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are'nt trying to get you.
 
G

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I don't think that programme reached the Westcountry region, but I am surprised at the number of people (fin excepted) who seem to think that you can "call out the lifeboat". Just how do you do this?
If a lifeboat out on exercise, or returning from another "shout", comes across an incident what are they supposed to do - pass by on the other side? Maybe an incident could have been handled by somebody else, but when you have the experts on hand and they offer assistance you would be a fool not to accept it.
 

Jeremy_W

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Lousy TV

This is classic awful TV! Absolutely minimal material spread as thinly as possible. The RNLI must have told the programme makers how it would be. False call outs based on dud info from well meaning onlookers et al. Probably those "rescues" were intersperced with half a dozen unscreenable false callouts over many days. The RNLI guys go back home happy that nobody was in peril - the TV crew tear their hair out.

The production house probably produced a really good pilot episode with all the decent material - now they're absolutely scraping the barrel to deliver the contracted number of shows.

When the last even mildly interesting docusoap you saw? The first series of "Airport"? The Grand National episode of "Hotel"?
 
G

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Interesting post - I will carry on paying my offshore membership and leave it to the coastgard/RNLI to decide what to do with it! I would only say that I hope nobody calles them out just to make life easy and I'm shore they don't but if someone thinks they need rescuing then they do, whether anyone else thinks they should in those circumstances is irrelevent.

Roly, Voya Con Dios, Glasson, Lancaster
 
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