Call Out

Not all incidents turn out well, the team have just returned from Old Harry after an owner reported their 7 year old Labrador dog missing.

Usually when we arrive at Old Harry the tide is in and that limits us putting a cliff technician over the cliff so would call for assistance of the ILB however today the tide was out and this gave us the safety margin to lower the Deputy Station Officer over and search the cliff base.

It wasn't long before Austen found the dog, sadly it hadn't survived the fall, so using the new animal bag we recovered the dog for the owner and escorted them all back to their car at the Bankes Arms for a sad journey home.

Smile Please, Cheese.

Here's a holiday photo of Austen meeting one of the Cornish Coastguard Teams, it was sent in by an 'unnamed source'.

Austen is the one on the right.

Austen's Engine

Austen has been away on a short break and decided to send us an e-postcard.....of a big engine that he found in Cornwall.( I know it's at 90degrees!)




No doubt he will want to try and fit this to his coastguard truck... Oops I mean our coastguard truck!

Blogger- iPhone

Chinese Lanterns

On the way home from work last night, over the sky of Poole, was a floating white light drifting out to sea......a Chinese lantern.

These things are getting more popular, available in garages and even available at book clubs. I was aware last night that one had already sparked several 999 calls down in the Weymouth area after a lantern was seen drifting out to sea.

So a plea.....no problem with having these things, but please if you are going to let them off within 5 miles of the sea, please contact the Coastguard, it will save time, money and more importantly someones life as some one might see a real flare and think its a lantern.

Meet and greet

Meet and greet is a common term in Coastguard to refer to meeting the lifeboat towing a broken down boat in. The role of the Coastguard is to then discuss what has happened and discuss safety issues.

This morning at 00.04 the team were tasked to meet a small vessel with 2 people on board who had broken down off Peveril. Swanage ILB had preformed their duties to the usual high standard and has the boat in tow and alongside the boat park jetties in no time.

Our role was to discuss the lack of safety equipment, no VHF, no life jackets, no flares just a mobile phone and so on.
I hope our message got through, the pair were lucky that their mobile phone worked, has they gone around the back of Durlston they would have had no signal, what would have happened then?
At the start of the boating season, we urge all boat owners to review their safety equipment, breakdowns happen but please ensure you have the relevant equipment to save your lives in an emergency and don't rely just on a mobile phone.

How Long

A question was raised some weeks back about whether our cliff lines were in fact long enough when we went over Ballard !

Now I was told that Ballard at its highest point was 375ft converted to metres is 114.3 metres, length of lines we currently hold 250 so thats loads left over ( 137.5 metres left??)

Well that's ok then, but remember that Ballard is not a sheer cliff its quite a slope in fact, we don't descend straight down and often go down at an angle to avoid bits of rock etc. We also don't set up the equipment right on the edge but several metres back from the cliff edge, and the rope technician carries quite a lot of spare rope in his bag to allow adjustment, so that 137.5 suddenly starts to decrease.

Oh heck were we going to have to get the church bell ropes from St Mary's Church like they use to when someone was stuck on the cliffs?.........

Thankfully no, Austen headed off and reached the bottom (the beach) in about 10 minutes and the good news was there was plenty of rope left in the bag. We use to have 200 metre ropes and that use to get very tight, now with 250 metre there is plenty spare.

Long Day

This is the device the Coastguard team looked after for nearly six hours until the Royal Navy confirmed it was a container.

With modern technology the picture of the tube was sent via email to our Operations Room in Weymouth in 5 minutes of arriving on scene, the problem was not knowing what was in side and that's why a bomb disposal team was called, sadly that involved a long drive from Plymouth.

Whilst we can take a picture we are not allowed to touch the device, just observe the markings and sit and wait having put a large cordon to protect the public.

So it was rather annoying that it was empty other than having sand inside......better to safe than sorry

Its kicked off

Busy couple of days for the team,

Sunday a broken down jet ski off Round Island in Poole Harbour, we don't get called down there very often!

Then to King Georges playing field for a medical evacuation by Rescue 106.

Today started with a mystery item on the beach, a long six hours later the team find out what it was. Photo's will hopefully be on tomorrow's blog.

Finally the team get called to Anvil Point for a climber fallen, Rescue 106 again in the patch.

Trailers

A lot of Coastguard teams have Rescue Support Trailers ........posh words for a good old trailer.

Its used for several things, carrying extra equipment or for removing large items off the beach or when we moved stations it came in very handy!

Now only one small problem these days with trailers, you have to have to have a trailer entitlement on your driving licence to tow one. Us old folk have what is known as Grandfather rights and can tow one without having to have taken the extra test, sadly that has changed.

So as time goes on less people will have trailer entitlements as they never thought at the time to take the extra test, a slight problem if you want to tow a caravan or a Coastguard trailer!

So the other day I visited the station to find Rid parking his car as above, "Rid are your practising towing a trailer?", "one small thing, you need a hitch!"

Moonlightling?

Deputy Blog mentioned this incident this week, a chap using a road guide to sail around the UK!

Well the Sun Newspaper ran the story, but our interest was more taken but the Coastguard on the left. Is this our Terry we all said? We know he travels the world but we never thought he took his overalls!