Taurus and Rescues/ RNLI Exercises.

[Andy the Coastie]

Ardhill on this this thread RNLI Supporters poll / thread quoted

Originally Posted by ardhill

I understand someone like Andy who volunteers his time and boat in an emergency.

When ever I'm not booked and the Dover Lifeboat wants a ' live exercise casuality ', I'm at hand to assist, and so has John with his RhIB Animal in the past.We both personally feel that helping in the crews training is our part of putting something back into the community.
Each lifeboat station has crew members from all walks of life and nowadays a lot don't come from a maritime background. Training sessions at each station varies. There is no way you can sit in a classroom or on a boat and be instructed in how things will work at sea in an emergency, so with the chance of doing more hands on in a practical way is far better. ( well , in my eyes anyway ).
I take my 2 boys to sea alot, this also gives them hands on experience working the Taurus and with lifeboats in the event that one day they may have to. The last exercise was that they were onboard and i had a heart attack, rope was round the prop........ Remembering my 2 boys are only 8 & 10.... one was on the radio giving position , my symptons etc etc while the other was perparing for the tow ( we have a proper towing hawser ), getting fenders on and clearing the decks.This can happen to any father and son whilst out on a days sail. Not only that, they can't be many kids of thier age, that can say that they have let of parachute, hand and smoke flares .
Having said that, I have had on a couple of occassion had the lifeboat out to me, and by doing these type of exercises, you roughly know what the coxswain is going to do when on scene, so being partly ready and looking professional goes a long way.
My services have been called upon to assist in lost diver searches, fishing boats made fast on the seabed and also broken down ones, now i consider that a honor being called by the coastguard to perform such tasks.

Also, being asked by the Boss coastguard at Dover to see If we could help out and assist as casuality for thier open day was remarkable, having never had a helicopter above me winching anyone off my deck was a learning experience, especially the Belguim pilot who made me go at 5 knots and he got within mm's of my mast. Cracking laugh by them chaps and also got my boys involved in deck work with the Dead Fred.


End of January we at Dover had a Inspectors Exercise, which basically the area inspector comes down and puts the crew though various situ's and makes a assessment and report. Well, during the afternoon of his visit to Dover, I was asked if i could go afloat and act as casuality for his exercise. I was told that at 19:00 to put in a radio call stating that i was out fishing with just myself and the skipper for the very first time for me to be at sea ( playing up as the complete and utter numpty ... ) and had to include the following :-

• Boat had hit something.
• Engine had stopped and can't be restarted.
• Skipper had fallen overboard. ( our ' dead Fred ' was used for this ).
• I had Angina
• Basically be as arkward as possiable and ask dumb questions

So, this is how it went.

Dover Lifeboat station ( acting the role of the Coastguard ) got a call from me on VHF on our private channel, which the crew were page *** Inspectors exercise, Launch *** ( we knew that the boat was going out before hand , but still lack of crew meant the lifeboat was shorthanded and 3 were new chaps ).
I was told that the lifeboat had been launched and stay listening on the radio channel for further advise from the lifeboat, at this point i threw dead Fred over the side ,then i was asked for a position " i'm sat in the house of the boat reading the instruction on how to use the radio was the reply " , after being given basic radio useage , it was plain sailing so to speak after that. " Can you count from one to ten ? " - " of course i can , i did go to school " ... but that was to short for them to get a DF on me ,i was using both the main VHF and the hand held making it really wierd for them. Anyway, they did in the end get a fix on my position by DF. All the time i was acting my chest pains ,,,,,, and was i a real pain.
Because i was still inside the harbour ( after giving them the wrong LAT & LONG in the first place ) , I was asked what was the water depth around me , to which i said " 0.2 " ,,, then came " are you on the beach or very close to shore ? " i gave them the GPS spped over the ground figure .The lifeboat was now on it's way to me,I had made sure that my nav lights were hard to be seen against the flow of traffic on Dover seafront ( think i was called a bas**D at the debrief cuppa time ). they went for the skipper aka dead Fred first and got him out the water, then the boat came alongside whislt i was in shallow water with yacht mooring pellet buoys all around me and a paramedic jumpped on to the Taurus asking me all sorts of questions over my condition, which i FCUKED up , coz when i was askedto breathe in , i said i had no pain ,,,, and it was reported back , that i had a muscle strain .......... by this time the inspector then ended the exercise as he had seen enough of how the crew worked as a team........ which was great to hear in the de brief.

Job well done by all and i must admit was great fun to be apart of.

• DEAD FRED is a man overboard dummy used for exercises, it weights 9 stone and is roughly 5 foot 5.
• DF = Direction Finder is a means of location using the VHF signal to light up a bearing marker on the set.Count one to ten slowly when asked , so they can get a fix.

[Andy the Coastie]

It's nice to get PM's from fellow YD'ers today, I see lots of divers here at Dover one season and not so much the next,,,, then when you see where they have moved to i see why .......

Originally Posted by Midnight

Thanks for the I enjoy most of your comments too.
Also wanted to thank you again for helping me out whilst I was coxing the clubs boat a few years ago before I moved over here!!
Dont know if you remember but we lost our drive between Dover & Folkestone and you had a dive party about half a mile away. We put out a call and you came to help, towed us back in and nudged us back into our berth. Fantastic boatmanship.

Anyhoo thanks again and I will see you when next in the area.
Regards
Adrian "Midnight" Sims
Ex of Falcon Divers

[ardhill]

Andy!

And I thought that you liked those nice Lifeboat people - Bad Taurus
.

[Frankie Price]

Great stuff.