News from the Dart Lifeboats - July 2014
The Education team. John Fenton and Bob Thomas, accompanied by various crewmembers from the Dart RNLI station, spent a week visiting Primary schools in and around Dartmouth spreading the RNLI message on how to stay safe on the beach. The photograph opposite shows the pupils of East Allington Church of England Primary School dressed as RNLI lifeguards with the red and yellow flags demarcating the safe swimming area.
RNLI Lifeguard cover in the South Hams. Last year RNLI lifeguards on our South Hams beaches saved 8 lives and rescued 120 people. They carried out major First Aid on seventy five occasions and gave 4263 beach safety education talks.
RNLI lifeguard cover this year
Full Season 3 May – 28 Sept Bantham & Sedgwell Cove
Main Season 17 May – 28 Sept Bantham Sedgwell Cove & Challaborough
Peak Season 5 July - 9 Sept Burgh Island, Blackpool Sands & Slapton Sands
If there is no flag flying there is no lifeguard cover.
The latest class of RNLI lifeboat. The first Shannon class lifeboat was named in July 2013, the ‘Jock and Annie Slater’. It’s a dramatic new class of lifeboat and for the next 25-50yrs this class of lifeboat will be making a real difference saving lives around the UK and Ireland. The RNLI will rapidly roll out these lifeboats over the next few years where they will be predominantly replacing the Mersey class. Exmouth Lifeboat Station received delivery of the Shannon Lifeboat on 9 May 2014
The All Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole. The building works for the new All Weather Lifeboat Centre are progressing well and completion will be towards the end of 2014. Work there will commence including the repair, refit, fitting out and finally the building of hulls of the new Shannon Class Lifeboat. The All Weather Lifeboat Centre is designed to build 6 Lifeboats every year. Once the centre is up to production levels, in about 3 years time, the centre will save the RNLI £3.5m each year.
International Work. In the summer 20 young men & women from all over world travelled to Poole to exchange their views on how lifeguarding can be done in a whole range of different scenarios. No one else is creating this sort of congregation of thinking and this allows the RNLI to share skills and expertise to use around the world. This is a low cost intervention for an enormous amount of return. Even with a small investment we can save a lot of lives. 1.2m people die from drowning each year and the RNLI has a real urge to get involved and help people stay alive in the less developed countries of the world. The RNLI is currently doing this kind of work in Bangladesh and Senegal.
First published By The Dart July 2014
