Marine SAR personnel demographics changing?

[oceanfroggie]

Many years ago most of the crews of RNLI lifeboats were seasoned mariners who worked full time on the water as fishermen or merchant sailors. They had sufficient regular professional experience in their day to day working lives that enabled them to make appropriate risk assessments in any situation. Similar for decision makers of the CG.

With the passage of time, dwindling fish stocks and EU quotas, RNLI volunteer crews are now drawn from all walks of life, few are full time mariners, some come from leisure boating, but many are just civic minded locals who generously give of their time. However has this change in demographics and lack of day to day professional experience led to incorrect risk assessments often resulting in SAR assets being tasked to minor incidents where no risk to life ever existed? Or is it that marine safety standards have risen, and indeed leisure users expectations combined with their apparent lack of competancy has led to more trivial 'shouts'.

Thoughts please.

 

[charles_reed]

Many years ago most of the crews of RNLI lifeboats were seasoned mariners who worked full time on the water as fishermen or merchant sailors. They had sufficient regular professional experience in their day to day working lives that enabled them to make appropriate risk assessments in any situation. Similar for decision makers of the CG.

With the passage of time, dwindling fish stocks and EU quotas, RNLI volunteer crews are now drawn from all walks of life, few are full time mariners, some come from leisure boating, but many are just civic minded locals who generously give of their time. However has this change in demographics and lack of day to day professional experience led to incorrect risk assessments often resulting in SAR assets being tasked to minor incidents where no risk to life ever existed? Or is it that marine safety standards have risen, and indeed leisure users expectations combined with their apparent lack of competancy has led to more trivial 'shouts'.

Thoughts please.

I think you are under a misapprehension - RNLI crews are reliant upon the local CG staff as to whether they are called out are not.
However, with the changes in CG funding and personnel this is very much (IMHO) what is happening. The problem is in the experience of the CG staff.

 

[NormanS]

It often seems that the CG over-reacts, and calls out assets when a phone call to a known contact would suffice. But you can imagine the furore if it could be shown that a life was lost because they did just that. Dammed if they do, dammed if they don't.

 

[chanelyacht]

It often seems that the CG over-reacts, and calls out assets when a phone call to a known contact would suffice. But you can imagine the furore if it could be shown that a life was lost because they did just that. Dammed if they do, dammed if they don't.

Do you really think we would task anything if "a phone call to a known contact would suffice"?

That is precisely our first port of call - but given the UK inexplicably does not have a register for all vessels, plus the regular rants we see on here saying that even the CG66 scheme is big brother, added to the chance of that first call going to answer phone, or being out of date, and you begin to see the problem we have.

Yes, in the good old days (not), old sea salts sat in lookouts dealing with a few jobs a year and reminiscing about days elsewhere. Plus, many were on good pensions from their navy days.

That worked at the time. But the incidents we handle have changed, not to mention vastly increased. A lot of our work is not at sea - from coastal path incidents to missing / suicidal persons, inland flooding, counter pollution, all sorts of things.

Good SAR coordination abilities is far more important than a previous career at sea - all officers as part our training have maritime knowledge tested, and whilst there may be the odd gap, I'd say there is less now than a decade ago when many had been at sea, but not on anything like the vessels we deal with daily.

If you really think we're not up to the job, pop along to the nearest MRCC (while stocks last) and find out a bit more.

 

[NormanS]

Do you really think we would task anything if "a phone call to a known contact would suffice"?

That is precisely our first port of call - but given the UK inexplicably does not have a register for all vessels, plus the regular rants we see on here saying that even the CG66 scheme is big brother, added to the chance of that first call going to answer phone, or being out of date, and you begin to see the problem we have.

Yes, in the good old days (not), old sea salts sat in lookouts dealing with a few jobs a year and reminiscing about days elsewhere. Plus, many were on good pensions from their navy days.

That worked at the time. But the incidents we handle have changed, not to mention vastly increased. A lot of our work is not at sea - from coastal path incidents to missing / suicidal persons, inland flooding, counter pollution, all sorts of things.

Good SAR coordination abilities is far more important than a previous career at sea - all officers as part our training have maritime knowledge tested, and whilst there may be the odd gap, I'd say there is less now than a decade ago when many had been at sea, but not on anything like the vessels we deal with daily.

If you really think we're not up to the job, pop along to the nearest MRCC (while stocks last) and find out a bit more.

Perhaps before losing the head entirely, it would have been better if you had read the whole of my post, and not just the first sentence.


But if you want, I can give you chapter and verse of an occasion when **CG called out ******* Lifeboat to investigate when an EPIRB, belonging to a well known local charterboat, had gone off, and the boat was on its mooring, outside the owner's house. On that occasion, yes, a phone call to the owner would have saved a lot of bother.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Well I am neither RNLI (except as a Sea Safety Advisor) nor CG but I also think your criticism is misplaced.

I do have friends who work in SAR and they would say two things. First of all they have to fly EVERY watch - whether they are called out or not. They have to achieve a certain amount of evolutions every month/week/day to keep in date so being called out to a 'possible' problem is neither here nor there. The silly stories of the SAR helicopter landing on a beach for ice creams is just a silly story. They have to fly - they have to land on strange places and if they use the trip to buy an ice-cream who cares? Its also fun for the locals and raises their profile. Secondly and much more importantly the SAR (and lifeboat crews) get REALLY hacked off about pulling bodies from the water. Its a regular occurrence and they would much rather be tasked for something that appears trivial and avoid the incident escalating than come back to search for the body.

I suspect where they have got it wrong sometimes is where people have reported a problem and the lifeboat comes out and 'takes over' without proper communication. That's a training issue - but its also a natural human reaction on the part of the lifeboat crew. However lifeboat crews need to train and if they can be tasked for something then its a good training evolution. The only thing I am slightly sceptical about is the way the RNLI generates its statistics. Headline numbers of lives saved sometimes could do with unpacking a little...

Just because the boat is on its mooring near someones house doesn't mean that the EPIRB wasn't signalling a distress. How do you know that the person was in to receive the phone call? Even if they were, how do you know the lifeboat wasn't out exercising and the CG asked them to go and have a look as they were near?

 

[sighmoon]

In a genuine emergency, there isn't really much time for 'common sense', or making it up as you go along They follow a procedure and err on the side of over reaction.

How long would you survive if you fell in the water this time of year? A normal person could probably keep afloat (assuming no lifejacket) for about 20 minutes. I'd be surprised if the lifeboat crew can get out of bed and on the scene in much less than that. So when the epirb goes off, the first thing that happens is the lifeboat is scrambled. I'm sure that after that, they call the marina, the boat owner etc.

Our local lifeboat get called to all sorts of non-emergencies - a plastic sheet that looks a bit like a body to someone on shore, for instance. But until they get there, they don't know

 

[chanelyacht]

Perhaps before losing the head entirely, it would have been better if you had read the whole of my post, and not just the first sentence.


But if you want, I can give you chapter and verse of an occasion when **CG called out ******* Lifeboat to investigate when an EPIRB, belonging to a well known local charterboat, had gone off, and the boat was on its mooring, outside the owner's house. On that occasion, yes, a phone call to the owner would have saved a lot of bother.

I would guarantee that a phone call would have been the first action. It's simply the first step - every time. No watc manager would ever justify an asset tasking without what we call a preliminary comms search - that includes searching all available databases for contact details. As I said earlier, often these bring up out of date numbers, or unanswered phones, in which case we have to progress to the next phase.

With an EPIRB, this is doubly so - the first satellite pass would trigger the hit, and the time between that and the second resolving position pass would be spent digging around - not just databases, but often googling the yacht name as well as this can bring up other contact points.

Tasking units on a first pass without checking for points of contact just doesn't happen.

 

[Keen_Ed]

How long would you survive if you fell in the water this time of year? A normal person could probably keep afloat (assuming no lifejacket) for about 20 minutes. I'd be surprised if the lifeboat crew can get out of bed and on the scene in much less than that. So when the epirb goes off, the first thing that happens is the lifeboat is scrambled. I'm sure that after that, they call the marina, the boat owner etc.

Without a lifejacket, you drown before hypothermia can kill you. With a lifejacket, longer than you might think.

http://gcaptain.com/cold_water/

 

[NormanS]

I would guarantee that a phone call would have been the first action. It's simply the first step - every time. No watc manager would ever justify an asset tasking without what we call a preliminary comms search - that includes searching all available databases for contact details. As I said earlier, often these bring up out of date numbers, or unanswered phones, in which case we have to progress to the next phase.

With an EPIRB, this is doubly so - the first satellite pass would trigger the hit, and the time between that and the second resolving position pass would be spent digging around - not just databases, but often googling the yacht name as well as this can bring up other contact points.

Tasking units on a first pass without checking for points of contact just doesn't happen.

Well, I'm sorry, but in this case your guarantee is worthless. The owner looked out of his window, and saw the lifeboat at his boat, contacted the lifeboat, and was told what was happening. I'm sure lessons were learned. It was a few years ago.

 

[chanelyacht]

Well, I'm sorry, but in this case your guarantee is worthless. The owner looked out of his window, and saw the lifeboat at his boat, contacted the lifeboat, and was told what was happening. I'm sure lessons were learned. It was a few years ago.

Sorry, you posted the recollection as if it were in context of how HMCG operates today.

There is still nothing in your account though to say the contact details were up to date on the EPIRB registry, or on the ITU database - our first two ports of call.

I'm merely stating how it is today, and how it should always have been since I've been dealing with Epirbs in their infancy.