Join in Poole RNLI's celebrations this week (From Thisisdorset)

Join in Poole RNLI's celebrations this week

7:00am Monday 27th July 2009 in

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IT’S just before midnight on June 6 and rain is falling over Poole Harbour. The volunteer crew of the Poole Lifeboat Station is celebrating the naming of the station’s new inshore lifeboat, the Sgt Bob Martin, at The King’s Head.

But as a day of ceremony draws to a close, the pagers of those who have volunteered for a sober night of duty ring out in the crowded pub, and for nine crew members the change of focus from pleasure to business is instant. There’s a man overboard.

Poole Hospital’s Dr Sarah Willcock, 27, a trainee crew member, sprints from the High Street pub and into the driving rain.

“I ran along the quay to the lifeboat station, but my clothes were soaked by the time I got there. I changed into one of the dry suits we wear and put on the helmet. But the weather was so bad that with the visor up I was blinded by rain and with the visor down, it was just ricocheting off,” said Sarah.

The inshore lifeboat is no longer an object of admiration for visiting dignitaries. It has become a lifesaving tool in the hands of helmsman, Gavin McGuinness, a crew member for 17 years, and no stranger to rough weather.

A coxswain-bosun at the RNLI College on West Quay Road, his boat handling skills are unquestioned, and he calls on all his experience as he plunges his crew into conditions he will later describe as among the worst he has faced.

“The visibility was terrible, the rain was hitting us like ball bearings, and sheets of rain broken by bolts of lightning made the conditions horrendous,” said Gavin.

Powered by twin, 115bhp Yamaha engines, the boat cuts through the seas at up to 35 knots, reaching the man, who has scrambled back aboard the harbour’s fuel barge.

Moments later, the station’s all weather boat, The City of Sheffield, a 25-ton, Tyne class, funded by the people of the Steel City, arrives to take the man to shore and safety.

But the night’s work for the crews of both boats is far from over. The inshore boat is called on almost immediately to search for two missing fisherman.

Panicking relatives of the crew have told the Coastguard that a shoreline search for the cruiser’s dinghy has proved fruitless, and radio and mobile phone communication is dead.

A report of the motorboat’s position sees the inshore crew abandon their search of the water and dash to the stricken vessel whose radio contact had been broken by the electrical storm.

Having twice attempted to get ashore in their dinghy, the fishermen had decided to moor, and are taken on the City of Sheffield to the Royal Motor Yacht Club at Sandbanks.

Two-and-a-half hours after the call-out, the crews return, drenched and exhausted, to their quayside lifeboat station.

Jonathan Clark, the Coxswain of the Poole Lifeboat Station, describes the conditions as equal in severity to any faced in his 25 years with the crew.

“It was as bad as it ever gets in the harbour. After all the celebration of the naming ceremony earlier in the day, it was sharp reminder what we’re about,” said Jonathan.

****** Fast forward six weeks to a weekly meeting to discuss the practicalities of saving lives at sea, and the banter ebbs and flows in the crew room of Poole lifeboat station.

Lifeboat operations manager, Rod Brown, on whose authority the boats are launched, chairs the crew meeting with the ease of a man confident in the abilities of a team called out 154 times in 2008, and 86 times already this year.

Coxswain, Jonathan Clark, and Senior inshore lifeboat helmsman, Paul “Flipper” Singleton, both hugely experienced and respected crew members of more than 25 years standing, contribute to the good-natured exchanges which provide a constant undercurrent to the business of the meeting.

The light-hearted verbal fencing is the outward sign of a bond forged in high seas and rough weather where, according to inshore lifeboat helmsman, John Vine, trust is everything.

A vote taken among all crew members will decide if trainees, Sarah Wilcock, Emma Wood and Ray Murphy, are accepted on to the crew after their 12-month probation.

Few could doubt the dedication of the station’s current crop of trainees, all of whom speak of their desire to give something back to those who have kept them safe on the water.

If successful they will be joining an elite crew. Anne Millman is among those recognised for their bravery in a “shout” to the explosion of the Lord Trenchard on Poole Quay in 1999 and to a call to an elderly woman pulled under the Sandbanks chain ferry in 2001.

Coxswain’s wife Anne-Marie Clark tells of the additional pressures on domestic life placed by her husband’s role. But missed cinema trips for their children Noah, eight, and Lily, six, are balanced by their position in the lifeboat station’s extended family, she says.

Station mechanic, Paul Taylor, the crew’s only full-time member, maintains the boats to a constant state of readiness, ready for launch within eight minutes.

Support for the RNLI’s independence from government funding and control is unanimous, with lifeboat station chairman, Peter Burt, arguing the state-backed alternative would be “rather badly run” and “hugely expensive”.

Instead, the crew puts its trust in the charity’s network of volunteer fundraisers. Tim Cork and Julie Ridout both work at the RNLI’s headquarters, but dedicate their spare time to the work of the Poole and District Fundraising Branch, and tell tonight’s meeting of their plans for the station’s first Lifeboat Week... starting today.