Lifeboats .... Again

[Sybarite]

I was speaking this afternoon to a friend on the marina staff who, for the last ten years, has also been the cox of the lifeboat. I was asking him if he had had any shouts over the week- end. He said no, luckily because both boats are out of the water being repaired.

I then told him about our discussion last year concerning the relative cost of the new RNLI Shannon boats and how it had been explained to me that they were specially designed for shallow water operation and therefore had jet engines.

His response: the two boats being repaired were both jet-engined boats and they were being repaired because they were jet boats. He said that because the jets, in turbulent water, draw in all sorts of sand and gravel which play havoc with the turbines.

He also said jets were much slower to respond to the throttle than props which made them difficult to handle in breaking surf conditions.

The third problem was that they had the greatest problem getting spare parts because the jet engine manufacturer has gone bust.

On a final point regarding the volunteer aspect, he said that, not only did he not get paid but for shouts during working hours, he has to make good the time lost to his employer.

Yours in anticipation......

 

[chanelyacht]

Assuming you were talking to an SNSM crew member?

Having widespread experience of operating jet boats, preventive maintenance is the key - as with any boat. Jets or no more susceptible to damage, in fact considerably less so that props.

The RNLI also do not leave stations boatless for more than a few hours due to the relief boat system.

 

[prv]

It would be interesting to know how similar the jets in the French lifeboats are to the ones in the Shannon. They clearly can't be the same, because the makers of the problematic ones have gone bust and the Shannons are still being built.

Pete

 

[Sybarite]

Assuming you were talking to an SNSM crew member?

Having widespread experience of operating jet boats, preventive maintenance is the key - as with any boat. Jets or no more susceptible to damage, in fact considerably less so that props.

The RNLI also do not leave stations boatless for more than a few hours due to the relief boat system.

Yes an Snsm coxun and there was a relief boat in fact - another jet boat as well as the 7m ribs belonging to the Pompiers.

 

[chanelyacht]

Yes an Snsm coxun and there was a relief boat in fact - another jet boat.

Fair enough.

Any lifeboat organisation is vulnerable to suppliers going bust though, which is why the RNLI bring so much in house.

 

[TimBennet]

He also said jets were much slower to respond to the throttle than props which made them difficult to handle in breaking surf conditions.

Clearly hasn't got much experience of handling jet boats in surf.

With jets the engines constantly run at full working revs. Even when stationary.
The thrust is controlled by 'the buckets'. Flip the buckets open and you have instantaneous full power.
Flip them down and you have instantaneous full power in reverse.

Do a Youtube search on the guys who run trips round Ramsey Island from Whitesands Bay in Pembroke. (Venture Jets?) They developed a RIB that became Ocean Dynamics, and seem to have had 30+ years experience of running passenger jet boats in surf. Can't imagine any other power boats except jetboats being able to mix it in what is otherwise exclusively surf board and kayak territory. If they were hard to control you think they might have had an accident in 30 plus years of trips, every hour, day in day out.

Wear and tear in sand and pebble filled shallow water can be high. But what's the alternative? By the time the water is that shallow, any conventional boat will either have had it's stern gear torn off, or a tunnel boat will be hard aground.

 

[PhillM]

Fair enough.

Any lifeboat organisation is vulnerable to suppliers going bust though,

you can remove the word "lifeboat" from your sentence. Suppliers going bust is a fact of everyone's life.

 

[Sybarite]

Fair enough.

Any lifeboat organisation is vulnerable to suppliers going bust though, which is why the RNLI bring so much in house.

Incidentally, what kind of preventive maintenance do you recommend for sand ingress churned up by the turbines?

 

[Sybarite]

Clearly hasn't got much experience of handling jet boats in surf.

With jets the engines constantly run at full working revs. Even when stationary.
The thrust is controlled by 'the buckets'. Flip the buckets open and you have instantaneous full power.
Flip them down and you have instantaneous full power in reverse.

Do a Youtube search on the guys who run trips round Ramsey Island from Whitesands Bay in Pembroke. (Venture Jets?) They developed a RIB that became Ocean Dynamics, and seem to have had 30+ years experience of running passenger jet boats in surf. Can't imagine any other power boats except jetboats being able to mix it in what is otherwise exclusively surf board and kayak territory. If they were hard to control you think they might have had an accident in 30 plus years of trips, every hour, day in day out.

Wear and tear in sand and pebble filled shallow water can be high. But what's the alternative? By the time the water is that shallow, any conventional boat will either have had it's stern gear torn off, or a tunnel boat will be hard aground.

He's in boats from morning to night. I have confidence in his opinion especially having been cox'n for the last 10 years.

 

[prv]

Incidentally, what kind of preventive maintenance do you recommend for sand ingress churned up by the turbines?

Presumably, replacing the turbines and any other wearing parts, but on a planned schedule and with a relief boat in place rather than running them until they fail and then going out of service unexpectedly.

Pete

 

[chanelyacht]

Presumably, replacing the turbines and any other wearing parts, but on a planned schedule and with a relief boat in place rather than running them until they fail and then going out of service unexpectedly.

Pete

Absolutely, along with good use of the weed rakes and good boat handling. As others have said, sand and gravel will damage the jets over time, but a prop boat would have been disabled doing the job.

As for not handling so well in surf, all boats suffer when the percentage of air in the water increases. Jets suffer no more than props though, and if there is a power delay they need to adjust the setup on the actuators.

 

[Sybarite]

Presumably, replacing the turbines and any other wearing parts, but on a planned schedule and with a relief boat in place rather than running them until they fail and then going out of service unexpectedly.

Pete

Where is it implied that this was not the case?

 

[prv]

Where is it implied that this was not the case?

You said:

I was asking him if he had had any shouts over the week- end. He said no, luckily because both boats are out of the water being repaired.

Which implies to me that this was not planned, scheduled maintenance. If it had been, with relief boats in place, it wouldn't have mattered whether there were shouts or not.

Maybe the situation was not in fact as you suggested, but you can't blame me for that

Pete

 

[Sybarite]

You said:



Which implies to me that this was not planned, scheduled maintenance. If it had been, with relief boats in place, it wouldn't have mattered whether there were shouts or not.

Maybe the situation was not in fact as you suggested, but you can't blame me for that

Pete

There was since post #4

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

Where is it implied that this was not the case?

You said: I was asking him if he had had any shouts over the week- end. He said no, luckily because both boats are out of the water being repaired. Which implies to me that this was not planned

There was since post #4

You asked pvr where it was implied that there was no relief boat. He directly answered your question by telling you.

 

[rib]

mind your own froggy

 

[Sybarite]

mind your own froggy

Thank you.

 

[Searush]

Thank you.

But the toad was right.

Cue Elton John, "Sorry seems the hardest word . . . "

 

[rib]

not in my mind one has to only look at post 4.unless of course hes a lonely old fart looking for any sort of communication to help him thru lonely nights

 

[Searush]

not in my mind one has to only look at post 4.unless of course hes a lonely old fart looking for any sort of communication to help him thru lonely nights

2 boats withdrawn for repair & one relief provided? One wonders at the need for 2 boats at one station unless they are for different functions but to withdraw BOTH at the same time for repair doesn't sound like sensible routine maintenance to me, nor does the word "repair" imply anything other than there have been failures.

But maybe David's English has suffered with him being from Mersea & spending a lot of time in France?

There again, failures are what you might expect when running a life-saving service on the very tight budget that David admires so much.

It would be interesting to know how those French boats are launched & recovered in bad onshore winds, as a significant part of the RNLI Shannon cost is the submersible caterpillar tractor system, and that allows the boat to drive on & off the trailer in water probably deep enough for the jets to suffer minimal damage. The RNLI designers do really think their problems thro very well.