Lyme Bay NCI
NEWSLETTER
Issue 2 No.3 August 2012
INCIDENTS
It looked like being a reasonably quiet weekend when Graham & Janet Hallewell the two NCI Lyme Bay qualified watchkeepers started their forenoon watch at the Look-Out on Saturday morning 7th July, but that just goes to show how the Search & Rescue services can never take anything for granted!
At around 11.45 Station Manager Clive Edwards noted that the weather conditions in Litton Cheney were so bad, with extensive and rapidly rising floods, that he decided to call the look-out to check on the conditions there, as he'd already had reports of closed roads, abandoned vehicles etc in the Burton Bradstock area.
It quickly became apparent that there was a serious risk of the two watchkeepers becoming marooned and unable to get through the village to their home, and as the road which their relief was due to travel along had already been closed it was decided to close the station rather than risk adding NCI watchkeeper casualties to what was fast becoming a confused situation bordering on chaos.
The first thing to do was to let the Maritime Rescue Co-Ordination Centre (MRCC) at Weymouth know that although NCI Lyme Bay would not continue with a visual watch that day they would be maintaining a listening watch on the radio from two strategic locations – one at Litton Cheney and one close to the beach at West Bexington, operated by the NCI Lyme Bay technical co-ordinator William Knapman who is also a reporting officer for HM Coastguard.
The MRCC agreed this would be a sensible and helpful move, and the next few hours were spent monitoring the more or less constant stream of radio traffic between the MRCC, Exmouth Lifeboat, Lyme Regis Lifeboat, West Bay Coastguard Mobile, Wyke Coastguard Mobile, The Coastguard Helicopter, the Air Ambulance, other ambulances, the Fire Service and Police who were responding to literally dozens of distress calls. These including a calls about couple of teenagers swept into the river at Bridport, a disabled man in a wheelchair up this waist in water at the football ground, a pregnant woman stuck in a car up to its windscreen in water etc.
At around 1515 William overheard MRCC Portland tasking the Coastguard Rescue Helicopter to a suspected heart attack victim in the village of West Bexington so he immediately contacted the Portland Coastguard Operations Room to offer on-the-spot assistance. A brief conversation established the exact location of the casualty in Beach Road and William was immediately able to direct the helicopter to a safe landing point in the field at the end of the casualty’s garden, so the helicopter was able to land within five minutes of the initial call. The crew were able to provide medical assistance and a paramedic then arrived shortly followed by an ambulance about ten minutes later.
Even more fortunately It transpired that the casualty had not actually suffered a coronary, although he was experiencing severe chest pain as a result of a chest infection, and William duly passed this information on to Portland Coastguard who thanked him for NCI Lyme Bay’s timely and effective assistance.
This is a quite timely illustration of just important it is to have people trained to cope in an emergency situation, whether at sea, on the coast or even inland, as happened on this occasion. Hopefully NCI Lyme Bay will soon be in a more central location where they can provide an even more effective service to the local community. (Report provided by Clive)
BRIDE VALLEY NAVIGATIONAL CHALLENGE
There were eight teams in this years challenge of which five included LB/NCI members. The challenge this year was quite difficult with no team scoring full marks. The third place was shared by two NCI teams one with Mike Nicol, and the other with Rosemary Lyth onboard.
NEWLY QUALIFIED WATCHKEEPER
Congratulations to Richard Deubert, and Tom James on becoming qualified watchkeepers. With the busy summer holiday period and the Olympics all new and prospective watchkeepers are particularly welcome to man the LO.
NEW LOOKOUT LOCATION
The West Dorset District Council Planning Officer has withdrawn our application for a Lookout on West Bay East Pier owing to listed building requirements. An alternative site over the ice cream kiosk and shelter on the western esplanade overlooking the west beach suggested by Bridport Town Council is being investigated.
PUBLICITY
We are providing and manning an exhibition stand for the Melplash Show, and collaborating with the other three Dorset NCI Stations at the Dorchester Show on 1st and 2nd September.
QUEENS AWARD FOR VOLUNTARY SERVICE
In recognition of the award of the QAVS the four Dorset Station Managers were invited to the Queen’s Garden Party. Clive’s amusing account of the proceedings appeared in the summer issue of the Watchkeeper.
A day to remember
Thanks largely to Geoff Peters who initiated and organised the whole thing, the managers of the four Coastwatch stations in Dorset (Peveril Point, St. Albans Head, Portland Bill and Lyme Bay) recently took themselves off on a day-trip to London, including a visit to Buckingham Palace!
In fact as a result of their being nominated for the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service Geoff Peters, John Masters, Dirk Aldous and Clive Edwards had all received invitations to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.
Not only had Geoff organised the whole thing, he even volunteered to drive us all there in his car, navigated by a very polite but ultimately infuriating lady concealed behind a screen in the fascia of Geoff’s car.
I set off from home at 8 o’clock on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, and drove to Geoff’s where I left my car and from there Geoff and I drove to Bere Regis to pick up John and Dirk. We had left ourselves oodles of time which, as things turned out, was just as well; no problem getting to Twickenham in a shade under three hours, but at that point the Merc’s lady navigator decided that we ought to avoid all the traffic by means of taking about the most circuitous route imaginable. I worked in London for a good few years, and even lived there for a while, but on this occasion we visited parts that I never even knew existed!
We eventually reached our destination in The Mall around 2 o’clock by which time four gentlemen with a combined age of 280 years plus were in urgent need of a loo because we had not, in the parlance used by coach drivers and tour guides, made any “comfort stops”
Geoff was convinced that there was a loo immediately opposite the barrier where we had been halted by a policeman who wanted to direct us elsewhere – Given his previous role (Dorset Chief Constable) Dirk was given the task of persuading the policeman to let us park more or less exactly where we were, which he duly accomplished; unfortunately the loos were actually about ¼ mile further down the road precisely where the policeman had wanted us to park in the first place. So we had to walk after all
After grabbing a cold drink or an ice-cream we strolled over to join the queue, anticipating a wait of almost an hour until 3 o’clock when the gates were due to open, but perhaps in view of the heat, the gates were open early and we made our way through the security checks and the Palace entrance to the beautiful gardens where we were lucky to find an empty table – the catering arrangements worked very smoothly and after only a couple of minutes queuing we helped ourselves to sandwiches, (and yes there were some cucumber ones with the crusts cut off) a variety of cakes, petit-fours and delicious iced coffee, ideal on a hot day like this.
We were too busy talking to notice the large number of people now lining up to catch sight of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family as they made their way down the steps onto the lawn so the only one of us who had a decent view at that time was Dirk on account of the fact that he’s a good nine inches taller than the rest of us!
Geoff definitely had a plan though – well actually not so much a plan as a “mission” in as much as he was determined that we should meet and have a chat to the HRH The Princess Royal who as we all know is a keen yachtswoman and President of the RYA – Well Geoff’s persistence certainly paid offbecause after chatting up one of the morning-suited and top-hatted “ushers” we were dully introduced to Princess Anne who was not only charming and interested in the role of the NCI but even remembered her having met Geoff before when she visited the Portland Bill lookout several years ago.
After that which was obviously the highlight of the day our thoughts turned to the journey home, and I ventured to suggest that I could probably make a better job of navigating our way to the M3 that could Miss Mercedes; so after a welcome cup of tea, and a few more sandwiches and cakes, we made our way back to the car, chuckled over the sight of the huge stretched limo that we’d seen just two people emerge from when we arrived, got in the car, switched on the air-con and settled down for the journey home, while Dirk amused himself (and us) taking photographs of a pedestrian while we eased our way through the temporary one-way traffic system round to Piccadilly.
Once we were past Hammersmith, apart from some traffic around Barnes, the Chiswick Flyover and the roundabouts at Richmond approaching the M3 the traffic was generally light and we made it back to Dorset in under three hours.
All in all it was a brilliant day, which will be long remembered.
Clive Edward
JURASIC COAST PROJECT
Alice Angus made a visit to the LO on 28th May and had a long Interview with William concerning the hazards of Lyme Bay and its notorious sea conditions resulting in many wrecks. Not surprisingly the interview was steered into an advert for NCI funding and recruitment. This arts project will be displayed at Bridport Arts Centre later in the year, so it will be interesting to see the results.
LITTON CHENEY WEB SITE
The web site has a dedicated “coastwatch” button giving news items of interest to members.
TRAVEL INSURANCE
Jim Scott has identified an insurance company that issues insurance with no age restrictions and offers a discount to NCI members provided they quote the reference “Jim Scott” in their application. The URL is or telephone 0844 3340165.
TRAINING SESSIONS
Jim Scott will be starting a new series of VHF Radio training sessions on 3rd September leading to qualification as a radio operator, and David Bowen will run a series of lectures for trainees commencing 10th September.
John Rowlands
Lyme Bay NCI.
Newsletter Editor.