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Training off Redcar

Saturday 22 November 10am

What a contrasting week it's been. Bright and sunny at the start of it, cold and bleak by the end of it.

As winter lurks round the corner, the lifeboat crew have been getting in some practice for one of our most tricky manoeuvres - the 'net recovery'. On most occasions it's possible to simply steer the lifeboat backwards into it's launching carriage at the end of a rescue, and then pull it out of the sea ready for the next launch. As the weather deteriorates and the height of the waves on the shore edge increases, that becomes more and more difficult for the helmsman to do. A bit like trying to reverse your car into a moving garage, without touching the sides!

That's when the net recovery comes into play. Rigged between the arms of the launching carriage is a large net made of strong, thick synthetic rope. With the net fastened to the carriage with special plastic retaining straps, the idea is for the helmsman to steer the lifeboat at speed into the carriage and, as the lifeboat strikes the net, for those retaining straps to break. That allows the net to wrap itself round the front of the lifeboat and bring it to a short, sharp stop. Not for the feint-hearted, but a vital technique in moderately bad sea conditions.

And then there's the method we use when the weather is really bad - and by the end of the week that's exactly the situation facing us. The milder weather we had at the beginning of the week was brutally听 pushed aside by a blast of icy Arctic air during Friday. So much so that, by this morning, the sea had grown to become a boiling, uninviting mass of water. Even though it is neap tides the power of the wind is driving the waves up the sea wall with tremendous force.

Under the conditions we're experiencing right now, the only safe way to bring the lifeboat back to shore is to crash it straight on to the beach. Then it's a case of all hand to the job to get the lifeboat back into it's carriage. Using the launching tractor to do the pulling, the crew keep the lifeboat on an even keel as it slides back in to position in the carriage ready for refuelling.

Hopefully, we won't have to use that technique because right now isn't a good time to be at sea. Gale force winds, mainly from a northerly point, are going to be with us for quite a few days. The swell is predicted to be 3 to 5 metres high on the shore edge, and considerably higher offshore. And it's cold - very cold. With an air temperature of just 2 or 3 degrees Celsius and 40 knot gusts of wind, there is a significant wind chill factor to take into account, meaning that it feels more like minus 15 degrees Celsius. If we're lucky, reasonable sailors should understand the dangers those conditions pose - and will stay at home.

Sunrise on Redcar Prom

Saturday 15 November, 11am

Remembrance Sunday was听 crisp, bright - and cold. The lifeboat crew looked smart as new pins in their traditional RNLI Guernsey jumpers ("ganzies").

Their medals glinted in the low sunlight as they marched alongside the proud veterans to the Cenotaph. They were glad of the warmth provided by their jumpers though.

The Guernsey jumper has long been a standard item of clothing for seafarers. Not only is it ideal for protecting them from the bite of the cold winds, but it has also served a useful, if macabre, function at times of disaster along the coastline. Many a drowned sailor and fisherman has been identified by the pattern knitted into his Guernsey - every family had it's own, unique pattern and from that the family name, and even the town or village, could be worked out. That's how Redcar lifeboatman William Guy was identified when he was lost overboard from the Zetland lifeboat in a teriffic storm on
Christmas Day, 1836 and his body was later pulled from the sea, down the coast at Staithes.

Gladly, no such disasters this week for the crew to deal with. Only one rescue - to a fishing boat with engine trouble. No problems with the weather though - sea conditions have been quite benign most of the week. The early morning sunshine has presented us with more beautiful sunrises over the cliffs at Saltburn. The calm seas have even attracted an unusual visitor to the bottom of the lifeboat station slipway. A young swan swooped down and spent an hour or so soaking up the sun as it paddled up and down the shoreline, much to the amusement of curious onlookers, including the seagulls.

With big tides by the end of the week, there's been an opportunity to explore the far reaches of the rocks - the "scars" from which Redcar's name is derived - at low tide for crabs. Armed with nothing more than a long metal hook to probe the nooks and crannies, the people of Redcar have done the same thing for hundreds of years.

It looks like a decent few days coming our way. The Atlantic chart shows a high pressure system dominating the south-western approaches to the UK. That should give us some mild airflows with only a threat of rain on Monday. And not much wind, so it should actually feel mild as well.

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