Sea-Fever
Active member
You left out 'should have' for all the Darwin-baiting idiots.
Lifeboat for tangled yachts?
- Thread starter RogerJolly
- Start date
penfold
Well-known member
Did he ask them if they knew who he was? That always sets the right tone in interactions.
ashtead
Well-known member
The issues of Newtown are as we know nothing new but might have been exacerbated in recent years by size of boats at anchors . I remember well sitting aboard our centaur and inwardly laughing as a lady on a small Shetland mobo attempted to manaually lift her anchor while husband in command gunned the outboard. Soon transpired they had helped us by lifting ours as well as we were also due to depart but upscale that situation from the little boats of our youth to the larger yachts of today and you can see why people might be concerned to seek assistance. Unlike the crystal clear waters of Bonafacio where the French diver is kept well employed lifting tangled anchors no one seems to have jumped at this opportunity in the murk of Newtown creek . I can see someone suggesting permits being required to anchor there before too long to protect the ring tailed plover or suchlike.
Snowgoose-1
Well-known member
I think it's so much nicer if a fellow boat owner can tow you in if the conditions suit.The rnli are now a very politically motivated organisation.
Juan Twothree
Well-known member
NormanS
Well-known member
Sadly, the RNLI seem to be acting as an arm of the Government (or Border Force).
Biggles Wader
Well-known member
This has the whiff of fake news about it. My understanding is that they respond to emergency requests from the coastguard with no political input from the RNLI. Do you know something different?
oldmanofthehills
Well-known member
I see the RNLI in a bit of a cleft stick here. After rescuing endangered asylum seekers they can hardly land them secretly on UK shores or otherwise enable them to continue their journey, thus they must land then at their home harbour where the police or border force will detain them under possibly rather unsatisfactory conditions. Perhaps blame the government for an illiberal interpretation of right of asylum but dont blame the RNLI.
The RNLI do a great job, and have no more issues than any large organisation
The RNLI do a great job, and have no more issues than any large organisation
Bru
Well-known member
Codswallop
What do you suggest the RNLI does? Leave people to die in the Channel?
The politics and so on are nothing whatsoever to do with the RNLI. If there are people in danger at sea, it is their mission and their duty, both morally and legally, to respond and rescue them regardless of their status or any other considerations
If Border Farce chooses to carry out it's legal duty and detain those rescued when they are landed, that is nothing to do with the RNLI (and the RNLI personnel, and the organisation itself, would be left open to legal action by the authorities if they obstructed the Border Force in the exercise of it's duties)
It's truly a no win situation for the RNLI. Photos of a Shannon landing on the beach loaded down to the gunnels with asylum seekers is not an image they will be at all chuffed about I'm sure but they have no alternative but to do the right thing
lustyd
Well-known member
To be fair, sometimes they launch just because they overhear something interesting. I heard Solent CG asking them to stay off the channel recently as there was a mayday in progress and it was that Mayday they were launching for!
NormanS
Well-known member
What sort of "danger" were these illegals in yesterday? It was flat calm. I'm often in more danger going back and forward to my boat's mooring in my small dinghy.
awol
Well-known member
If your life is in imminent danger then a Mayday is appropriate but a larger dinghy might be a better idea,
doug748
Well-known member
Once you contact the Coastguard you are stuffed, I think they are under huge pressure to call out the guard.
On the handful of times I might well have touched base by VHF, in a more sane world, I have not called the Coastguard but relied on sorting things myself. It increases the possibilities of problems but you have to make a call.
Once it meant going over the side at sea, once staying out all night when I hoped to be in, once towing the boat by dinghy alongside. However you grow by doing it.
The irony is that the more people weep on about Health and Safety the less assistance there is for people who just want to get on with it.
This is no particular comment on matters from post 1, a situation I know nothing about.
.
Rustyknight
Well-known member
Years ago we'd just left Yarmouth IOW to cross the bay to Poole, when the Coastgaurd put out a call on CH16 for craft in Christchurch Bay to keep a lookout for a small powerboat with 4 people on board that had engine failure.
We did spot them, and diverted towards them whilst giving the CG an update and posistion. CG operator informed us that the ILB was on it's way from Lymington, and sure enough within 10 minutes or so we could see it coming from close to North Head bouy. The weather was calm and sunny, so it wasn't long before the were alonside.
The powerboat was from Poole also, so we offered to tow them back there... it might have been slow, but easily do-able as there was little or no wind. The ILB crew were having none of it, and insisted on towing them back to Lymington.
With the powerboat crew having left their car in Poole, and would therefore be stuck without transport if their engine could be fixed, we let a crew member come aboard, and took him to Poole to get his car, whilst his family enjoyed the ILB tow to Lymington, sat in their broken down boat.
Juan Twothree
Well-known member
And it's now causing problems for some of my colleagues, merely by virtue of them being lifeboat crew.
A friend of mine, who is crew at a station many miles from the nearest migrant, lost his job on a building site this week, after the rest of the workforce refused to work with a "people trafficker".
I've been called a "traitor to this country", by someone presumably with a fairly poor grasp of geography, as I'm never likely to rescue a migrant either, unless they're spectacularly off course.
Still, I suppose I shouldn't complain. Some crews nearer the centre of the action have had rocks and bottles thrown at them, and been threatened with physical violence.
Biggles Wader
Well-known member
What has that got to do with it? The lifeboat was requested by the coastguard and they responded as they normally do. The rnli has no political input which is the subject matter here
Bru
Well-known member
They cannot "just launch because they overhear something interesting"!
It has been pointed out many times hereabouts, by myself with some understanding as an outsider (because I actually bother to go and find out the truth) and more importantly by the several RNLI crew who post on this forum, that there are laid down procedures for launching a lifeboat
And those procedures mean that RNLI lifeboats do not (normally) launch on service until requested to do so by the relevant Maritime Rescue Coordination centre (i.e. the Coastguard) and even then the decision to launch is (normally) taken by the Designated Launch Authority (or their deputy) at the RNLI station, not the crew
Lifeboats do not launch on their own recognisance because individual stations are unlikely to be aware of the big picture. The MRCC may know, for example, that the AWB to the North of the station is on service and unavailable and may decide that the incident does not warrant an AWB or that it should be attended by the station to the South in order to keep the AWB in the middle station available for subsequent incidents (just one of many possible scenarios one could dream up to explain why individual lifeboats are not free to do whatever they please)
If a lifeboat is on exercise and available to assist, this procedure may be short circuited by the coxswain / helm contacting the MRCC to offer their assistance. Only in exceptional circumstances where, in the opinion of the helm, coxswain or DLA, there is an immediate risk to life, does a lifeboat unilaterally attend an incident without being tasked by an MRCC
Oh and if indeed the Coastguard told a lifeboat to "get off air", my guess would be that was an under-trained newby at Fareham - I did overhear in the early days of the new NMOC an inshore lifeboat helm get increasingly frustrated at his inability to get a sensible response from the operator at Fareham who didn't seem to understand the job at all (the helm was trying to get the operator to go to CH.0 and they weren't getting it, he gave up after a while and asked for tasking details on Ch.16 and was still getting waffle and nonsense! Eventually, after several minutes, the conversation went to Ch.0 after which I obviously couldn't follow it and since my mate didn't have a scanner we didn't hear a different voice give the lifeboat it's tasking information properly!!)
lustyd
Well-known member
I'm simply relaying what I heard (without specifics, obvs), and that was CG telling RNLI to STFU and stand down while others dealt with the Mayday. They launched anyway and continued overspeaking people on 16. The CG continued to tell them politely to keep quiet. RNLI then bypassed them by directly asking for a position. Whether it's procedure or not, it certainly happened.
Hermit
Well-known member
Was this the paddleboard incident in the Solent a copiuple of weeks ago? If so, I think I know what you are talking about. Calshot were launched first and then Cowes. I do think you might be just over-egging the overtalking a bit though.
D
Deleted member 36384
Guest
I don't know what the right answer is for the RNLI and I sympathise with them rescuing refugees from vessels in distress. I don't support what they are doing when collecting refugees from boats and transferring them to shore. In my view, for as long as the situation is happening, the UK needs to respond with Border Force boats to rescue vessels in distress with refugees and collect refugees from overloaded boats. Refugees don't head to sea in wild weather, hence any vessel in distress carrying refugees should easily be rescued by dedicated Border Force vessels manned by professional sailors.