billmacfarlane
Active member
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.
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.
