Meeting with the RNLI

Met with the RNLI today and after a fairly informative one hour tour from Barbara we spent several hours meeting with Ian to discuss training programs, which led into drinks, which led into dinner...

The sheer magnitude of the RNLI´s operation here in Poole is pretty amazing. Even more amazing when one considers that it has all been build through fund raising (granted that´s over 100 years of fund raising) As you can see from the photos the complex including the Head office, workshops, training college, and reserve and training fleet is massive. We got the full tour of the college and that alone was fairly impressive.

It´s a bit daunting perhaps to see how far advanced they are compared to our own CCGA-P especially considering that the area of coastline we try to cover is larger with less then 1/5th the number of stations. The population, obviously, being significantly different the other way around. It´s the larger population base which affords them the fund raising base we lack and thus the means to conduct operations on such a grand scale. That combines with some really stellar branding and marketing policies. However - we´re hear for the training - so enough of the size differences.

The RNLI has had a competency based training program in place since 1999 - we are on the same path and have been since About 2004 but it´s taking a bit longer to implement. We were toured through their 10m x 20m x 4m deep wave pool for sea survival training where a class had just finished "abandoning ship" into the pool and was getting into life rafts with all the lights out - sound system blaring, wind machines running, and 1m waves as part of a 5 day Course that all crew must take before being part of a boat-crew.  

After the tour we met with Ian - their crew training manager and showed him the Navigational Equipment Training we are working on see http://www.smallvesselsimulation.com/ and the web component that steps people through the learning process. We discussed RADAR and collision avoidance and how to train crews with limited RADAR experiences the best ways to use this tool. This relates directly Back to the SEN/L Course Kellei and I just completed and it was interesting to find that they are basically in the same Boat as us in this respect - still working to find the best way to deal with this problem - having recognized the need and risks. One big difference is that in the RNLI it would take a very keen and dedicated volunteer About 5 years (at the minimum) to get to the point of becomming what we would term an ´Advanced Crew´ - the CCGA-P tends to rush this - Kellei and I making it to Coxswain in just over 1 year - something with our new training system that should start to change hopefully.

From a training perspective - we came home with our heads flooded with information and stayed up until the wee hours getting all the key points down so that we can digest them in detail later. There are a lot of similarities between where the CCGA-P is trying to go, and where the RNLI already is - but our organizations are very different and some things - like the fact that they are the primary resource and we are not - will always Hold us Back to some extent. However as the CCGA-P continues to grow and mature, the insight gained from this kind of trip should certainly help us avoid some of their pitfalls.

I´m not sure what we´re going to do today - I don´t think we´re going to make it too far out of Poole - it´s 0930h here and we´re still pretty tired - so it might just be another trip into the town center and some further exploration - we´re due to be up at 0400h tomorrow to start the bus portion of our trip to Sweden - we´ll take this knowledge with us there, and see what the rest of the world is doing for training as well.

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