Falmouth

The final stop on the Cornwall tour was Falmouth, and another modern building to contrast with the traditional style Coastguard Stations I had been expecting to see.  When many of the country's Coastguard Stations were built in the 1800s, they were often to a standard design and most featured a familiar archway -our own former station at Peveril Point had one, although in its later years it was hidden away by an extension at the front.   Sadly, as more and more teams move to modern premises, there are fewer of these traditional stations to see.

Falmouth is actually quite a busy building; Not only is the volunteer Coastguard Rescue Team based here, but it is also home to 5 SCOOs (each responsible for 4 or 5 teams in their respective patches) and an area commander 'COAC' who looks after the SCOOs.  The RNLI is based in the right hand side of this unit, and just out of shot.

At the time of writing, Falmouth had responded to 66 incidents this year - further details are on their Facebook Page

About a mile away at Pendennis Head is the Falmouth Operations Centre, part of the National Maritime Operations Centre (NMOC) network.