The Crew
The Exmouth crew is 25 strong including 1 woman. All are volunteers
and are from very different backgrounds. Some work for other emergency
services while others are school teachers, boat builders, sales
executives and IT technicians. The minimum age to join a lifeboat crew
is 17 (with parental consent) with an upper age of 45 for inshore
lifeboats (ILB) and 55 for all weather lifeboats (ALB).
The reputation and efficiency of any lifeboat station is only as good
as its crew. This means that training is a very large part of station
life, but this places considerable demands on the crew's time over and
above being called out for 'Service Launches'. Training is formalised in
'Competence Based Training' (CoBT) which ensures volunteer crews have
differing tasks to learn and perform commensurate with their position
within the crew structure i.e. navigators, coxswains, first aiders and
mechanics. Once they have been taught or have learnt a 'task' they are
assessed as being 'competent' by demonstrating this to an RNLI assessor.
Many of the tasks have to be re-validated every three years.
All lifeboat stations that have ALBs have either a full time Mechanic
or Coxswain, or both. At Exmouth the post is combined to a Coxswain
/Mechanic. His responsibilities are to ensure the boat is always
maintained and ready to go to sea in any weather conditions, with a
trained crew to provide the best possible response to a person or vessel
in distress 24 hours a day, 356 days a year.
A typical day involves maintenance on the lifeboat, ordering spare
parts, updating maintenance records, monitoring the crew's progress
through CoBT and arranging candidates from the station for specialist
courses that are run at The Lifeboat College at the Poole Headquarters.
Some of these residential courses (if passed successfully) culminate in
certification that is recognised outside the RNLI and can often assist
in maritime employment.
The volunteers meet once a month at a formal 'crew meeting' where the
past month's operations are discussed and potential new members are
introduced to the team. At close of business light refreshment is often
taken in a nearby pub!
|
