Tidal Thames - vhf procedure for person in river

[Time Out]

Erm that’s what should happen but the river clearly is a different animal as has been proven countless times by the use of mobile devices to alert services to folk in trouble in what is mostly considered a ‘restricted’ area. As in not a vast expanse of tidal water way. Or sea in other words !

You are not going to send a mayday if you see a paddle boarder in trouble at Brentford. You are going to either help or call 999 if you are on the shore.

 

[Time Out]

Must ask this question , of this Post ; surely INLAND waters are treated differently to OFFSHORE locations when asking for HELP or ASSISTANCE by a craft afloat on Inland Waters ?

Surely the Local Emergency Services , Police , Fire Brigade , Ambulance etc etc are Local Inshore so are best to handle any Emegency afloat , as well as ashore ?

Surely these Inshore Emergency Services are close to hand , far closer that the Coastguards , so are able to react more quickly , therefore safely more productive ?

Pants. You posted this as I was typing !

 

[TwoFish]

Must ask this question , of this Post ; surely INLAND waters are treated differently to OFFSHORE locations when asking for HELP or ASSISTANCE by a craft afloat on Inland Waters ?

Surely the Local Emergency Services , Police , Fire Brigade , Ambulance etc etc are Local Inshore so are best to handle any Emegency afloat , as well as ashore ?

Surely these Inshore Emergency Services are close to hand , far closer that the Coastguards , so are able to react more quickly , therefore safely more productive ?

On the tidal Thames and also on the non-tidal Thames as far upstream as Hampton Court / Molesey Lock, it is often a coordinated response between any of the above (+RNLI). London Coastguard coordinate / liaise with all of the above via the emergency services' TETRA Airwave radio network.

 

[westernman]

You should obviously call 999 as request here:-

 

[Outinthedinghy]

Wrong thread

 

[Pump-Out]

You should obviously call 999 as request here:-

View attachment 149017

The thread title is "VHF procedure"
Please explain how you would link this telephone to your VHF in a hurry.

 

[Chris_d]

The thread title is "VHF procedure"
Please explain how you would link this telephone to your VHF in a hurry.

Look closer at the photo

 

[Bilgediver]

The thread title is "VHF procedure"
Please explain how you would link this telephone to your VHF in a hurry.

First of all have to locate one and then get ashore without losing your boat

 

[Juan Twothree]

Sorry to jump onto an old thread, I've only just found it, being an infrequent visitor to the Thames forum.

Someone earlier mentioned Tower Lifeboat mainly launch to trivial incidents -that's absolutely not the case. It tends to be only trivial calls that get reported, (or shown on TV), as there's something of an embargo on reporting any jobs involving suicide or self harm, which nearly all of their jobs are. There's good evidence that reporting suicides can inspire others to do the same.

A lot of the calls are to people on bridges threatening to jump, hence the lifeboat often gets stood down en route, as landside police can hopefully deal with the casualty.

But plenty of people do jump. Some get rescued fairly quickly, others don't, so unfortunately the lifeboat crews get to do plenty of CPR. Apparently a quarter of all the first aid in the whole of the RNLI takes place on the Thames.

The ones that are really serious about killing themselves often put heavy things in their pockets. One that I went to even had a rucksack full of dumbbells. We recovered him next day at low water.

To return to the original question (sorry, I got a bit carried away there), I'd definitely put out a distress /urgency call on channel 14 above Crayfordness, as London CG are co-located on the same desk as the PLA VTS operators at Woolwich.

Below Crayfordness, the VTS centre at Gravesend has excellent VHF coverage on channel 68, and has been known to phone Gravesend Lifeboat Station directly for something urgent, rather than go through the CG.

Channel 16 calls to the CG can be a bit hit and miss, depending on how their aerials are configured (not every aerial is listening on every channel). And from experience, I'm not convinced that London VTS monitor 16 all the time, or indeed very much at all.

 

[Time Out]

Sorry to jump onto an old thread, I've only just found it, being an infrequent visitor to the Thames forum.

Someone earlier mentioned Tower Lifeboat mainly launch to trivial incidents -that's absolutely not the case. It tends to be only trivial calls that get reported, (or shown on TV), as there's something of an embargo on reporting any jobs involving suicide or self harm, which nearly all of their jobs are. There's good evidence that reporting suicides can inspire others to do the same.

A lot of the calls are to people on bridges threatening to jump, hence the lifeboat often gets stood down en route, as landside police can hopefully deal with the casualty.

But plenty of people do jump. Some get rescued fairly quickly, others don't, so unfortunately the lifeboat crews get to do plenty of CPR. Apparently a quarter of all the first aid in the whole of the RNLI takes place on the Thames.

The ones that are really serious about killing themselves often put heavy things in their pockets. One that I went to even had a rucksack full of dumbbells. We recovered him next day at low water.

To return to the original question (sorry, I got a bit carried away there), I'd definitely put out a distress /urgency call on channel 14 above Crayfordness, as London CG are co-located on the same desk as the PLA VTS operators at Woolwich.

Below Crayfordness, the VTS centre at Gravesend has excellent VHF coverage on channel 68, and has been known to phone Gravesend Lifeboat Station directly for something urgent, rather than go through the CG.

Channel 16 calls to the CG can be a bit hit and miss, depending on how their aerials are configured (not every aerial is listening on every channel). And from experience, I'm not convinced that London VTS monitor 16 all the time, or indeed very much at all.

Teddington. Not Tower.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Sorry to jump onto an old thread, I've only just found it, being an infrequent visitor to the Thames forum.

Someone earlier mentioned Tower Lifeboat mainly launch to trivial incidents -that's absolutely not the case. It tends to be only trivial calls that get reported, (or shown on TV), as there's something of an embargo on reporting any jobs involving suicide or self harm, which nearly all of their jobs are. There's good evidence that reporting suicides can inspire others to do the same.

A lot of the calls are to people on bridges threatening to jump, hence the lifeboat often gets stood down en route, as landside police can hopefully deal with the casualty.

But plenty of people do jump. Some get rescued fairly quickly, others don't, so unfortunately the lifeboat crews get to do plenty of CPR. Apparently a quarter of all the first aid in the whole of the RNLI takes place on the Thames.

The ones that are really serious about killing themselves often put heavy things in their pockets. One that I went to even had a rucksack full of dumbbells. We recovered him next day at low water.

To return to the original question (sorry, I got a bit carried away there), I'd definitely put out a distress /urgency call on channel 14 above Crayfordness, as London CG are co-located on the same desk as the PLA VTS operators at Woolwich.

Below Crayfordness, the VTS centre at Gravesend has excellent VHF coverage on channel 68, and has been known to phone Gravesend Lifeboat Station directly for something urgent, rather than go through the CG.

Channel 16 calls to the CG can be a bit hit and miss, depending on how their aerials are configured (not every aerial is listening on every channel). And from experience, I'm not convinced that London VTS monitor 16 all the time, or indeed very much at all.

Thanks Juan ; Calls that you describe for the Middle Tidal Thames RNLI is much as was covered by the River Police then , mainly Jumpers (mainly seasonal ? ) , and occasional Boats , Barges adrift : with the occasional Help request from Land Police requesting assistance for a fugitive using the Foreshore to evade them (somehow or other the fugitives did not think of looking towards the Thames for Police , ah well , so it goes .

 

[Outinthedinghy]

There was a spate of incidents quite recently with idiots thinking it was funny to shine laser pointers at the helm on the Clipper catamarans.

Don't know if they got them (landside police were called) but hopefully if they did they throw the book at them.

If you are in charge of a large high speed commuter craft with dozens of passengers on it you really don't need idiots adding to the workload.