To those who live near or visit the coast, an RNLI lifeboat station is a familiar and reassuring sight. But many are still surprised to learn that there are RNLI crews launching to the rescue in London too For more than three years now, the RNLI has provided a rescue service on the Thames from lifeboat stations at Tower Pier, Chiswick, Gravesend and Teddington. In many ways they are just like the hundreds of lifeboat stations around the coast of the UK and Republic of Ireland where crew members give up their time to launch lifeboats to save lives around the clock.

But there are differences, explains Tower Pier Helmsman Ian Barnaby: 'While there aren't large waves like at sea, there's very little time to play with if someone ends up in the Thames. You've got a six-knot tide, cold water, undercurrents, debris and lots of traffic that can't alter its course in time. Most of our rescues involve people actually in the water.' With such challenging conditions, and regular launch requests, speed is of the essence. The swift E class lifeboats at Tower Pier, Chiswick and Cravesend are crewed by a mix of full timers, like Ian, and volunteers. While Teddington is away from the heart of the city and uses an entirely voluntary crew, the other three stations have crew on station 24 hours a day. As a result they are able to launch in just 90 seconds, and every one of those seconds counts.

'You can't achieve a 90-second callout time with pagers,' says Michael 'Fester' Sinacola, who is a voluntary crew member on the coast at Great Yarmouth and Gorleston when not working as a helmsman at Tower Pier. 'I live about a mile away from my lifeboat station in Gorleston. You couldn't do that here. But I still volunteer on the coast too because I find lifeboating rewarding, whether it is my job or what I volunteer to do,' adds Fester.

Tower Pier, Chiswick and Gravesend always have three crewmembers on call: two full timers and one volunteer. As with on the coast, those volunteers have a wide range of backgrounds and careers.

In both 2003 and 2004,Tower Pier was the busiest RNLI lifeboat station and on average carries out one service every day in the summer months. The 37 station volunteers range from a 19-year-old who was born and bred nearby, to a 47-year-old former Brighton lifeboat crew member.

Janet Kelly, Station Manager at Tower Pier, says: 'We have got IT workers, police officers and even a yeoman at the Tower of London volunteering. They give a special flavour to the team and we could not operate as we do without that third member of the crew.' One such volunteer is civil servant Kaverne Bailey. 'As a sailor, I see this as a way of giving something back,' he says.

The training, the team spirit and the rewarding feeling it gives you makes it worthwhile.' One particular aspect of training that crew members often have to call upon is First Aid. 'Some people we deal with have fallen or jumped from quite a height and can hit things on the way down, hit the river in shallow water or land on the shore,' says Ian.

'There are some traumatic injuries.' As well as hauling people from the water, the crew has also been called upon to tow boats that have collided or broken down, find children in dinghies and assist tourists taken ill aboard pleasure boats (see the letters pages in the winter 2003/04 issue of the Lifeboat for a personal account).

'Another key difference between here and the coast,' says Janet, 'is that the people that report an emergency are often tourists standing at the side of the Thames and not necessarily sure where they are.' As a result, crews may be given details of what landmarks callers can see nearby - such as Tower Bridge, the London Eye, or the RAF Memorial - and therefore need to know the area well. 'You might say they have to have the river version of the taxi drivers' "knowledge",' adds Janet.

Hauled to safety at Tower Pier In the early hours of Friday 13 February 2004, Beefeater and RNLI volunteer Bill Callaghan was woken by his wife at his home in the Tower of London. She had heard shouts for help from the Thames.

A man was in the river near Tower Bridge and the powerful tide was rapidly carrying him upstream. Bill resisted the temptation to call his RNLI colleagues direct and instead telephoned the Coastguard.

The Coastguard wanted to know where I was and I said that I was in my bedroom in the Tower of London,' remembers Bill. There was a silence, the same pause that we get when we order pizza - but he believed me.1 The Coastguard requested the launch of the Tower Pier lifeboat and, from his window, Bill watched the three-man crew climb aboard the E class, start the engines and slip her moorings.

The launch and rescue took place within 90 seconds, with the casualty found holding on to the pier for dear life before being hauled out and handed over to a waiting ambulance where he was treated for hypothermia.

Bill remarks: The casualty was well educated, well dressed and well employed but sadly his medication had caused a chemical imbalance and he felt compelled to jump in the river.

The shock of impact from a fall of around 12m into very cold water rattled his senses back into place and his survival instinct took over. When he was rescued he was weakened and shocked but profoundly grateful.

'If the RNLI were not on the Thames, he'd have disappeared.' Chiswick offer a second chance 'From time to time we have faced questions and comments about the numbers of suicide-related incidents we respond to in London,' says Chiswick lifeboat Station Manager Wayne Bellamy,'but we believe people deserve a second chance.' One example of such a rescue was when the Chiswick lifeboat was called to the river's edge in spring 2004. A man was attempting suicide and had made his way into waist-deep water. Each time a police officer approached him, he waded deeper.

On arrival, the lifeboat was able to prevent him from wading further by blocking his way, and this continued until a police officer dressed as an ambulance man was able to offer medical assistance and apprehend him.

Several months later, the man visited the crew at Chiswick lifeboat station and thanked them for giving him another chance. He told them he had given up drugs and alcohol and was managing to hold down a job.

'He said he had got his life back together,' recalls Wayne. 'We do not always learn what the long-term outcomes of rescues like this turn out to be, but this one has certainly become a life saved.'.