Purbeck Handprints

The team have been nominated for " Best in Purbeck Award 2016" for the best blogger in Purbeck.

Competition is tight and at the weekend one of our competitors declared the battle lines so we have had a rethink about our blog.

You may have noticed, business is a little quiet for us at the moment which is of course is good news but not when writing blogs !

Our accident prevention strategies seem to be working well so clearly with a competition to win we are widening our blog

Now our competitor runs a wildlife blog ( others are available of course ) so we have decided to enter the market of wildlife photography  under the name of "Purbeck Handprints"




Some sort of snail not in need of rescuing in the area of South Swanage.

Well we all start somewhere ...... Let's see how our competitor responds

Frank's Tank

The DSO took a bike ride out to Frank's Tank, near Studland,  this morning.  Accompanied by his son, one of the objectives of the exercise was to check the state of the track and the access of this popular mountain bike route.

The trail features a long, fast downhill stretch and a fallen cyclist here could well mean serious injury, hence it's good for the team to be familiar with the area in case we are called in for first aid and/or to assist with a helicopter evacuation or carry out by stretcher to a road ambulance. Local knowledge can save precious seconds in an emergency.

Sadly we learned today of a local cyclist who came off his bike over the weekend and suffered a broken leg. The hillside location to the north of Swanage wasn't accessible to road ambulances and with the air ambulance unavailable the team would have been ideally placed to assist with first aid and carry out. 

Sadly the team weren't tasked and the cyclist's mates, some of whom had already cycled 100 miles that day had to assist the paramedic with the 45 minute stretcher carry.  

Only a few weeks ago one of our training sessions was devoted to locating and stabilising a casualty on the coast path and stretchering him out to safety.

Coastguard training

By the way, the other objective for the morning's bike ride was to get an ice cream at the viewpoint on the Corfe / Studland road, and I  am pleased to report mission accomplished.

An incident photo

This photo was set from a friend of a climber who the Swanage and St Albans teams recovered after they dislocated their shoulder last year.

Kerry and Chris undertaking an assisted decent , Nick and Steve on cliff edge safety.

Please respect our Speed Limit

If you are visiting Swanage , by boat or jet ski please observe our speed limit in the bay. Sadly this evening a few jet skis clearly didn't watch their speed.

It's 5 knots simple as that.

Peace and quiet

Looking across the bay before the bank holiday weekend

Training with the Lifeboat Crew

The main point of last nights training was to share equipment and see how we could transfer casualties from the shore to the lifeboat.




Nick on the radio


Seeing if the Coastguard stretcher fits in the lifeboat - that worked


Lifting the stretcher from the Inshore lifeboat to the all weather lifeboat.


Tom sat watching Eastenders - well that's what we told him




Nick discovers what happens when you break something on Dave's new boat. Hopefully he will let out next week.

Show and tell with the Swanage Lifeboat Crew

For tonight's training we linked up with the crew of the Swanage Lifeboats and got a chance to see their new Shannon Lifeboat.




Kerry , Brian and Eric get a brief on the Inshore Lifeboat .


The Shannon arrives.


Kerry takes command.


Dave the new Coxswain explains the workings of the new boat to Brian , Eric and Roger.

Our thanks to the crew tonight a very useful training session , more photos tomorrow.

Who's at Peveril

We are quite often asked if we can see people from our ' tower' at Peveril.

The look out at Peveril Point isn't a Coastguard lookout and hasn't been since about 1994 !

The National Coastwatch Institution operate the lookout manned by volunteers and in an emergency will contact the Coastguard.


Coastwatch and Coastguard are often confused, Coastwatch are a charity whereas the Coastguard is a Government Agency.

Swanage gets a Blue flag

Swanage has again achieved both a blue flag and a sea side award for 2016.

These are awarded for things like water quality and safety to name a few.

Well done to all those involved in making our beach clean, tidy and safe.

The meaning behind ordnance

We had some feed back this week on us using the term 'ordnance' for items found on the beach.

There are several terms we could use but in general ordnance is a widely used term in the military. Other words could be , bombs, shells, ammo and UXB to name a few.

A quick search on the internet on the definition of ordnance ,

mounted guns; artillery.
"the gun was a brand new piece of ordnance"
synonyms: guns, cannon, artillery, weapons, arms, munitions, military supplies, materiel

a branch of government service dealing especially with military stores and materials.
"the ordnance corps"

If the term ' bomb' was used then as can be seen this doesn't cover everything we deal with

A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy.

The term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include grenades, shells, depth charges (used in water), warheads when in missiles.

The Navy , Army and RAF have their own teams to deal with ordnance and are referred as EOD teams - Explosive Ordnance Disposal

Anyway , the important message is, if you find something and not sure what it might be , then call the Coastguard / Police.




This was found some years ago in "little sea" Studland by some children.

A type of mine in this case , Studland was a test area for the D Day landings and although 80'000 items were cleared after the war, ordnance is still turning up despite the area being regularly checked.

999 Coastguard