Safety Equipment Advisory Check How does your boot chock outP On 16 November 1999, Melvyn and Jean Taylor of Doncaster were sitting in their motor cruiser at Strawberry Island Boating Club waiting for their RNLI SEA Check Adviser to carry out a check of safety equipment on board Sea Mist Little were they to know what was to follow...

Melvyn and Jean have always been very safety conscious but wanted to know that they had not overlooked anything that might be useful when the unexpected occurs.

'On the East Coast where we go cruising, there are not many safe havens if caught in bad weather,' says Melvyn, 'we just wanted the peace of mind in cnowing that we have done as much as we can.' Some time after the SEA Check, Melvyn was asked what he thought about this new RNLI srvice. His first word was 'brilliant' and he went to say that he was not sure just what to expect forehand, but thought the idea was good and irorth having a go. The SEA Check started with nice cup of tea and a 20 minute chat about ating in general and took about an hour of JGLER19+ checking and talking about the safety equipment. What Melvyn did like was the friendly way in which it was conducted.

Were there any shocks? Well not at the time. Sea Mist was found to be very well equipped.

The main recommendation from the SEA Check adviser was to purchase and tie tapered softwood bungs to all of the seacocks.

Two weeks later Melvyn rang to say thank you, 'You might just have saved our boat and maybe even our lives.' He had got the softwood plugs that we recommended, but whilst he had the boat out of the water for scrubbing, he checked through the hull flanged connectors. What a shock, one of them had fractured and could have been lost at any time. 'That could have sunk us.' Melvyn believes that every boat should have a SEA Check and, as he points out, anyone who breaks down at sea puts other people's lives at risk and not always just the crew from the lifeboat. 'Jean and I would always go to assist someone in trouble, until the lifeboat arrives.' Everyone has a duty to help themselves first - SEA Check has to be good for us all, 'I would recommend all boat owners to participate in SEA Check'.The RNLI's SEA Check (Safety Equipment Advisory Check) service is now nearly a year old and we thought it was time to look at the team's results over its first boating season. We asked Ian Benham, SEA Check Manager, to bring us up to date with the latest developments...'SEA Check is designed to provide a quality advisory service to leisure boat owners and I am extremely encouraged with the results we have achieved over the last few months. Over 2,300 boat owners have requested face-to-face advice from the team and we have provided checks to the fullest range of boats andowners, from the best equipped boats (and most experienced boat owners) to the novice with no marine safety equipment at all.

'After 10 years in navigation and communications, I joined the Sea Safety team in August 1998 to test the principles of SEA Check with a pilot scheme on the South coast. We consulted the lifeboat stations that fell inside the pilot scheme area in order to get their views on the aims and objectives of the service. Similarly, we invited local Offshore members to take part in the service and to tell us what they thought about the advice provided. The results and feedback indicated total support for the service and we were delighted to obtain Trustee approval to provide anational service.' formally launched at the 1999 and, since that time, the team of ten full-time coordinators has been expanding and developing the teams of volunteers needed to provide a quality service (approximately 400 at present). Ian continues, 'SEA Check is built on the voluntary ethos and culture of the RNLI and our volunteer teams are vital in this respect.

Indeed, many of our SEA Check advisers have previously served on lifeboat crews andthis confirms the fact that SEA Check is an ideal way to ensure that practical lifesaving experience is passed on to the boating public.

'Of those checks that have been completed, the results and feedback have proved that SEA Check is effective in improving safety awareness and is supported by those who have taken part.

Feedback questionnaires were returned by 70% of boat owners that have had a SEA Check, a huge rate of response. Every single questionnaire confirmed support for the service and some 35% indicated that extra safety equipment had been purchased in preparation for the check. In addition, our volunteers were able to provide very basic safety equipment advice to a further 35%. It is therefore quite possible that we have had a direct effect on the levels of safety equipment carried in 70% of the boats that have taken part.

'While 2,300 boats in the first year is a good start, we are intending to increase the number of checks provided to around 20,000 a year in the long term. This will obviously be much easier to accomplish with our full planned complement of approximately 2,000 volunteer advisers. It is therefore our biggest priority to recruit and train extra volunteers over the next few months.

'We have been able to provide appropriate advice to all types of boats. Even the most experienced boat owners have confirmed that they have found SEA Check to be of use and, at the other end of the scale, we have found navigation side lights that have been installed pointing upwards! The Sea Safety team in Poole are available to answer any queries about the service and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss this in more detail.

'Now that we have proved that the service works effectively in practice and has confirmed the conclusions of the pilot scheme, we are looking to build on the successes of last year.

If you do own a boat, or know someone who does, please help the RNLI to help you by having a SEA Check. Call freefone (0800) 328 0600 or write to Freepost address: SEA Check Manager, RNLI, Freepost (SWB 20460), Poole, BH15 1ZZOVGF 3 1,000 yG3fS SEA Check, in common with the strong volunteer tradition and background of the RNLI, relies totally on its volunteer advisers to provide a first class service.

As inshore lifeboat crew members retire at 45, and all-weather crews at 55, there could be a situation where 20 or 30 years of practical 'front line' experience is lost if the crew member does not remain involved with the station. SEA Check is an ideal way of ensuring that experience is put to good use by passing it on to leisure boaters.

During the pilot scheme, exactly 50% of the volunteer adviser team came from an RNLI crew background, while the other half came from a leisure boating environment. At present, some 25% of the team (of approximately 400) have previously served as lifeboat crew. The SEA Check team were amazed to realise that their RNLI crew experience, when added together, totalled over 1,200 years!Readers will know by now that the RNLI is over 175 years old, but they may not know that the Institution has been preventing accidents for most of this time as well!The Lifeboat has often featured the work of the RNLI's Sea Safety team since it was formed in 1994 but we were amazed to recently uncover some of the following extracts from The Life-Boat Journal of October 1860. It confirmed that the Institution was firmly committed to accident prevention over a hundred years ago: 'Public attention has frequently been called to the invaluable use of a barometer for indicating a coming storm. It not unfrequently happens that a notice of a gale is given by a barometer two or three days before it actually takes place.

It seems plain that with such powers placed providentially in our hands the calamities now endured by our fishermen and coasters might in many instances be avoided. A good barometer in a public situation would warn them in time what to expect, and they could thus be frequently able to avoid the terrible consequences of storms, so often at present fatal to them.' Rear-Admiral Fitz-Roy, a member of the Institution's Committee of Management, arranged for 40 barometers to be provided to 'our poorest fishing villages' in the mid-1800s. Following this initiative, the Duke of Northumberland also provided barometers to fishing villages on the Northumberland coast and, in 1860, the RNLI decided to fund the provision of similar barometers to the coast.

The article continues: 'It is, however, evident that something more is absolutely required, in order to make barometers generally available for our fishing and seafaring population: it is therefore satisfactory to find that this important subject has been taken up practically by the National Life-Boat Institution It is proposed to fix such instruments, wherever found useful and practicable, in suitable positions at the Society's iifeboat houses, which are situated on most parts of the coasts of the United Kingdom'The provision of these barometers was a great success as confirmed over 20 years later in The Life-Boat Journal dated August 1882: ' ...it is certain that the National Life-Boat Institution must have indirectly contributed to the saving of the lives of a large number of fishermen.' Not content to rest on its laurels, the Institution continued to observe the behaviour patterns of the marine community: 'At present, it is notorious that the masters of our small fishing craft hardly ever think of carrying with them an aneroid, and thus, when in mid-ocean, they are without the most hopeful means of forecasting the disasters which too often overtake them when gales of wind suddenly spring up.' In order to meet this need, the RNLI decided to 'extend to poor Masters and Owners of [fishing vessels and] Coasters, under 100 tons burden, the privilege of purchasing for eleven shillings and sixpence, one-third the retail cost, a first-class Aneroid Barometer, which will be of the greatest use in warning them of the corning tempest.' All this goes to show, saving lives by prevention is one of the RNLI's most long-standing traditions!Ground Force meets Sea Check! TV gardener and presenter, Alan Titchmarsh presented a special prize to lucky boat owner Melvyn Taylor on the RNLI stand at the London International Boat Show at Earls Court in January.

The celebrity star of BBC's Ground Force, who is a keen lifeboat supporter and boat owner.

presented the mt — , - V l B prize of 'a day out with the RNLI' to Melvyn who had just become the 2,000th person to sign up to Sea Check..