No, not another football
match, but something quite serious and vital to the well-being of others.
On Sunday 19th January I felt very privileged to witness the training session that took
place out to sea near the Lifeboat House. It was one of those really miserable mornings,
misty out to sea, non-stop drizzle, cold and thoroughly uncomfortable all round. But this
did not stop the members of our RNLI honing their Air Sea Rescue skills. |
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I found out quite
by accident that there was a training session planned for that morning and after having
spent a couple of hours watching from both the beach and then the cliff top.
I wondered how often this sort of training takes place without our knowledge. Remember,
they are volunteers, they are called upon often enough to real life rescues, but to enable
them to carry these out with their renowned professionalism they also put in hours of
training.
I watched as first they launched the lifeboat now done by reversing it on a trailer down
the ramp and into the sea. |
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Not quite such as magnificent
a sight as in the old days when our large boat was launched, but very effective and quick
none the less. The major difference is that the old boat had a top speed of only 8 knots,
our current one does 30-35 knots, this quite obviously allows the crew to get to the
incident far more quickly and time saved is crucial.
Once out to sea they were joined by both of the Cromer Lifeboats and then an RAF
helicopter. With the naked eye we could see people being winched into the helicopter |
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and also people
being winched from the helicopter into the lifeboats. At times they were in the water for
several minutes and despite their protective suits they must have been absolutely
freezing, but still they continued.
I left to go back to my nice warm house for a lovely hot cup of coffee after about an hour
and a half, nedless to say the RNLI men and RAF were still out there training.
Behind these men there is an army of other volunteers, who again give their time freely
raising money to enable our lifeboat to exist. Next time you walk past someone shaking a
pot for donations, stop and think, without money they would not be able to work and one
day, you might need them. |
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