The crew at Chiswick on the River Thames is one of our busiest – and in October 2016 they knew it wouldn’t be long before they were called on for the 3,000th time. But who would need their help?

Crew Members Gavin Simmons and Holly Walters prepared to wash down Chiswick’s inshore E class lifeboat on the morning of Tuesday 25 October. It was the final day of their 4-day shift – handing the lifeboat to the next crew is a routine that differs from most stations. While many lifeboat volunteers operate with pagers, Chiswick is one of three lifeboat stations on the River Thames that has lifesavers on site 24/7 – the crew members and helms undertake 12-hour shifts for 4 consecutive days. Along with Holly and Gavin, full-time Helm Andy Mayo was also on shift that Tuesday, completing some paperwork inside the office. ‘At about 9.30am, Andy came outside to join us,’ remembers Gavin, ‘and we happened to spy a rowing coach out on the river.’ The rowing coach was struggling with something, but the lifeboat crew’s view was obscured by a large yellow buoy. So they launched to take a closer look. ‘As we got nearer, the Coastguard started up on the radio,’ recalls Andy. ‘They were getting 999 calls reporting people in the water – but we couldn’t see anyone because of the buoy. It was only as we got closer that we saw four girls in the water. They were next to this upturned rowing boat, holding on for dear life!’ The schoolgirls had left their training club for an early morning practice, accompanied by their coach in another boat, and another rower in a single scull (a boat used in competitive rowing). They had been rowing with the tide but soon ran into difficulty – a passenger boat was coming in the opposite direction and struggled to move over, allowing them all enough room to pass.
‘In a moment of panic,’ Andy recounts, ‘the rower in the single scull upturned.’ But as the coach attempted to help them back into their boat, the four girls began to drift with the tide and collided with the yellow buoy – plunging them into the cold water too.

‘The girls had T-shirts and Lycra on, so they were going to get cold quickly,’ Andy explains. ‘Getting them out of the water became our priority.’ Gavin adds: ‘Andy steered us alongside the nose of the rowing boat and shimmied us along so Holly and I could pull them aboard. They had only been in the water for a few minutes and they were already very, very cold.’ ‘We may not be a station that launches into raging waves, but had one of the girls drifted off, it could have quickly escalated into something serious,’ Holly explains. ‘Once we got them all in the lifeboat, we gave them blankets, wrapped them up and gave them some water – they were great.’
Andy, Gavin and Holly powered the four rowers back to their training club with the coach close behind them, single sculler in tow. ‘In the end, this was a big adventure for them,’ says Andy. ‘Holly and Gav were talking to them and they kept nice and calm – it was great that this didn’t scare them too much.’

3,000 shouts
Chiswick is one of the RNLI’s newer lifeboat stations – the crew have been saving lives on their patch of the river since January 2002. ‘It’s wonderful that we have a presence here on the Thames – it’s so important for us to be here,’ says Holly.
 Three thousand call outs just reinforces that we need to keep doing what we’re doing.’ The volunteers at Chiswick Lifeboat Station provide around 12 miles of search and rescue cover on the River Thames – including the iconic start and finish points of the
annual Oxford Cambridge Boat Race. ‘There’s a large rowing community here – it’s one of the most frequent type of shouts we get called to,’ explains Gavin. We also get tasked to help people out walking and dog walkers. And a lot of residents here have their own boats, so we can educate them about how to stay safe on the water – it’s great we can offer that too.’ Andy adds: ‘We’ve got a very fast-flowing river that can be dangerous. You can look out at the tides and they may not look very strong – but they are.’

‘ We have to be kitted up and on the lifeboat in 2 minutes’

I joined the RNLI 14 years ago at my local station in Littlehampton. I had a friend on the crew at Chiswick and one day I came up
to provide cover for an empty seat – I’ve been here for 8 years now! We’ve got a good bunch of people here from all different
backgrounds – sometimes when you put a crew together, you wonder: “Are they going to get on?” but it just works for us. ‘The rescues here are quite fast – at Chiswick, our average is around 10–30 minutes from start to finish. From the time we get the call, we have to be kitted up and on the lifeboat with a plan of action in under 2 minutes. That’s what makes us a bit different.’

GAVIN SIMMONS
HELM | CHISWICK LIFEBOAT STATION