LIFELINE October 2012 - English

LIFE LINE

October 2012

December 2010 The Newsletter of the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF) December 2010 News… Experience… Ideas… Information… Development…

December 2010 In this issue:      

December 2010

IMRF Membership, and Members Assisting Members The IMRF’s Asia Pacific Regional Centre Focus on the Swedish Sea Rescue Society and Royal Canadian Marine Search And Rescue December The Royal National Lifeboat Institution and international development 2010 News from South Africa, Cape Verde, The Gambia, and Bulgaria and more!

December 2010 December 2010 December 2010 December 2010

IMRF Membership Special Edition

December 2010

Synergy – from the Greek for ‘working together’ – has been described as ‘the creation of a whole that is December greater than the sum of its parts’. IMRF Membership is all about synergy, about sharing and supporting: 2010 sharing experience, supporting SAR around the world.

IMRF Members are organisations large and small, old and new. Many have been providing maritime search December and rescue services for many years; some are new to the work. Many provide maritime SAR units; others, 2010 SAR aircraft; others coordinate SAR: some do more than one of these things. Some Members are Government organisations; others are non-governmental, providing SAR services in various voluntary ways.

December Some Members do not yet provide SAR services, but aspire to do so. Others act in various supporting roles.

2010

Together, they form a worldwide network. The IMRF links them, sometimes representing them on the international stage; always ready to help them to help each other. Our Members are our ‘parts’, and our December Members working together, through the IMRF, produce a greater whole.

2010 Synergy. It’s what the IMRF’s all about!

December 2010 The International Maritime Rescue Federation is a registered company limited by guarantee in the United Kingdom and registered as a charity in England and Wales Patron: Efthimios E. Mitropoulos, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organization, 2004-2011

December 2010

Registered office: IMRF West Quay Road Poole BH15 1HZ United Kingdom Company Registration Number: 4852596 Charity Registration Number: 1100883

www.international-maritime-rescue.org

December 2010 December

LIFE LINE

October 2012

Editorial Welcome to the October edition of your newsletter: a ‘special’ edition, focussing on IMRF membership. Every edition of LIFE LINE is about our Members – but this one is especially so! You will find articles here on what IMRF membership means, for organisations who are already Members; for those who might be; and for those whose lives we are trying to help save...

In this edition we also begin a new series of articles, focussing on particular IMRF Members. I hope you will enjoy reading about them – and I hope that you will then contribute to the series, so that we can read about you!

It’s always interesting to hear what others are doing in SAR and how they are doing it. But what is most useful in the IMRF context is the opportunity to learn from our colleagues. If an idea works in Sweden or Canada or Bangladesh, will it work in our part of the world too? It may be unlikely that there will be a direct ‘read-across’, but good ideas grow from seeds; and seeds blow on winds from all sorts of directions!

Contents A special edition

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1

Editorial

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2

Dates for the Diary

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2

IMRF membership: what’s in it for me? .......

3

IMRF membership: the details ....................

4

Major Donors

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4

Members Assisting Members ....................

5

Asia Pacific Regional Centre

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5

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6

SAR Matters

The Swedish Sea Rescue Society

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7

Royal Canadian Marine SAR

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8

The RNLI & international development .......

9

News from South Africa

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10

News from Cape Verde and The Gambia ...

10

Loss of the Skagit

11

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Mass rescue operations

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11

The JPO Vulpecula rescue

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11

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12

News from Bulgaria

A word from the Chief Exec

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12

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12

Send us your news & pictures

Dates for the Diary I hope that all IMRF Members will send in articles for the new Focus series. And please do not be concerned that your story might not be all about success, as the two we feature in this edition might seem to be! Yes: the Swedish Sea Rescue Society and Royal Canadian Marine SAR have had major successes in building up their services in recent years. But I’m sure our colleagues in those organisations would be the first to agree that, sometimes, things have been very hard too.

We all know that running a SAR organisation is no easier than doing SAR itself: in some respects it can seem harder. We also know that we can learn from each other: the parts can build a better whole.

So: please tell us about yourselves; your equipment; your training. And tell us too about your needs, if you have them – how you would like to do SAR better, if only you had the resources to do so.

For the Focus series will be about needs as well as successes. We look forward to hearing from you.

Dave Jardine-Smith news@international-maritimerescue.org

IMRF European Regional Meeting

18 October 2012

To be held in Reykjavik, Iceland. For details, please contact secretariat@international-maritime-rescue.org

RESCUE 2012 - Iceland

19-21 October 2012

Arranged by IMRF Members ICE-SAR, and to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland. For details, see: www.icesar.com/rescue

IMRF South American Regional Congress 30 October - 2 November 2012 To be held in Montevideo, Uruguay. For details, please contact secretariat@international-maritime-rescue.org

World Maritime Rescue Congress 1-4 June 2015 Advance notice of the IMRF’s next Congress and Quadrennial General Meeting. Further details in due course.

If you have a SAR event of international interest which you would like to see listed here, please send the details to news@international-maritime-rescue.org

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LIFE LINE

IMRF Membership: what’s in it for me?

Let’s face it: in these difficult times we all have to ask ourselves that selfishsounding question; especially if we are spending some of a SAR organisation’s hard-earned funds. So: what benefits will your organisation gain from IMRF membership? What justifies the membership fee?

Well, there are many answers to that question. In no particular order, here are some of them.

As an international non-governmental organisation, the IMRF has been awarded consultative status at the International Maritime Organization, the IMO: the UN body responsible for international shipping, including maritime search and rescue.

We represent the world’s maritime SAR community in that important forum and in others associated with it, such as the Joint Working Group on SAR that the IMO runs in partnership with the International Civil Aviation Organization, and which has editorial responsibility for the International Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Manual: the IAMSAR Manual; the ‘instruction manual’ for the global SAR system. IMRF Membership gets you a seat at the UN table!

Then there’s the synergy we talked about on page one – working together to make SAR response better overall.

We share information and experience; we share lifesaving ideas, tips and technologies, operating procedures, training programmes, and lessons learned.

However big and experienced a Member organisation is, it always has more it can learn – for who

October 2012

would say that he fully understands the ways of the sea? – and a large organisation can learn from its smaller colleagues just as the smaller and newer organisations can learn from those who have been in the SAR game for longer.

And it’s not just about sharing ideas.

Equipment passes from hand to hand.

Whether it’s a boat or a radio or almost anything else we need in maritime SAR, if it’s superseded in one part of the world it can often go on to continue to do lifesaving work in another.

constituent Member organisations is a primary focus for the IMRF. Key to the essential business of good internal communication – in addition to conferences and direct contacts (and, of course, this newsletter!) – is the IMRF website: www.international-maritime-rescue.org.

Members have access to the password-protected parts of the site, where a dynamic and expanding library of information is available to them.

This includes information on the IMRF’s current projects, which are aimed at enhancing SAR response worldwide.

The IMRF helps establish all these networks of sharing. We facilitate contacts, whether bilateral or multilateral, in many ways; not least through our quadrennial World Maritime Rescue Congress, a premier event in global SAR; and through our Members Assisting Members scheme: see the article on page 5.

Mutual assistance may be truly global, but it can also be regional. The IMRF divides its areas of operations into maritime regions, each with a regional coordinator to assist Members within it. One of the seven Trustees on the IMRF’s Board acts as a mentor to each regional coordinator, so that the line of communication between the ‘front line’ and the Board is always short. Ensuring good communications between the IMRF’s directors and our

Members working together are developing guidelines for the design and equipping of rescue boats, and the training of their crews. This is a classic example of Members pooling their experience and expertise for the common good.

Similarly, Members are working together on the IMRF’s mass rescue operations project, seeking to improve global response to incidents in which large numbers of people need to be rescued – the sort of case which the IMO defines as being beyond SAR services’ normal capability (see page 11). A third project, on water safety education, is also getting under way.

‘What’s in it for me?’ A great deal!

IMRF Members gain directly from their membership, but they also contribute beyond their local spheres to the IMRF’s wider humanitarian aim: preventing loss of life in the world's waters.

Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?!

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LIFE LINE

IMRF Membership: the details There are several different ways in which you can be a Member of the IMRF. Under our current constitution there are five official ‘classes’: Associate Member, Affiliate Member, Full Member, Major Donor Full Member, and Honorary Member. Here are a few details.

Associate Membership is available to any organisation, business or individual with an interest in the provision of maritime SAR or the promotion of water safety.

Affiliate Members may be subsidiaries of Full Members which provide maritime SAR services; organisations whose prime purpose is the promotion of water safety; or any organisation which is planning to provide a maritime SAR service in the future. Affiliates and Associates are both welcome to attend IMRF general meetings, but have no voting rights.

Full Members are the core of the IMRF. These are organisations which provide maritime SAR services by prior agreement with the authority responsible for SAR in their region (if such an authority has been defined).

Full Members may attend general meetings; may propose, second and vote upon motions; and may nominate and vote for IMRF Trustees.

Major Donor Full Membership is available to the nine Full Members who have contributed the greatest amount of funds or services-in-kind in the four year period before each IMRF quadrennial general meeting. The Major Donors nominate an additional two Trustees.

The final category of current IMRF membership is Honorary Membership, which may be awarded to any individual or organisation in recognition of contributions made toward the fulfilment of the IMRF’s objects.

October 2012

All of the membership classes above carry with them access rights to the Members’ area of the IMRF website, www.international-maritime-rescue.org, and participation, where appropriate, in IMRF events and projects.

We are planning to introduce another membership category, that of ‘Supporter’. No privileges would attach to this new class of membership, and Supporters will not have access to the Members’ area of the website. But the new category will be open to anyone who wishes to support the IMRF’s work financially for humanitarian reasons. The minimum contribution suggested would be €30 per annum.

With the exception of Honorary Members, the main membership classes pay fees according to the their status and their organisation’s annual turnover. The fee for Associate Membership is currently set at a minimum of €1000 per annum. Affiliate Members are asked to pay €110. Full Members’ rates are in three bands, depending on turnover: ‘small’ organisations pay €400; ‘medium’ ones €1800; and ‘large’ organisations a minimum of €4000. As the Major Donor concept implies, additional contributions are always welcome! (See ‘Major Donors’,

Major Donors As described in the adjacent article, the IMRF’s constitution allows for ‘Major Donor Full Members’ as one of its membership categories. These are Members who make significant additional donations to the IMRF’s work, either in cash or in kind.

All membership fees are valuable, of course, and put to good use – but the generosity of the Major Donors has enabled us to undertake project work and to support less well-off Members in ways that otherwise we could not have afforded.

While we hope to greatly expand our income in future through donations from non-Members and the spread of Associate membership in particular, the Major Donors have been key to the success of the IMRF’s early years as an independent charity.

For constitutional reasons we identify our Major Donors in fouryear periods leading up to our quadrennial general meetings.

Currently they are:

right.)

If you would like to know anything more about IMRF membership, this is the lady with all the answers: Ann Laing, seen here at her desk in Scotland. As well as running IMRF Members the Maritime Rescue Institute, based in Stonehaven, Ann is the IMRF’s Membership Secretary.

She may be contacted at: a.laing@international-maritimerescue.org or on (tel) +44 (0)1569 765768 or (fax) +44 (0)1569 765979

the UK and Ireland’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution; China Rescue & Salvage; the Swedish Sea Rescue Society; the German Service;

Maritime

SAR

the Maritime Rescue Institute, Scotland; and the Royal Netherlands Rescue Institution.

Sea

Our grateful thanks to them all!

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LIFE LINE

October 2012

Members Assisting Members

Asia Pacific Regional Centre

Members Assisting Members is the mutual aid scheme for IMRF Member organisations – established at the Members’ request. It is a simple means of communicating capabilities and needs among the IMRF membership. Sharing is what the IMRF is all about, and the Members Assisting Members scheme is a tool designed to facilitate the sharing of resources and expertise among IMRF Members, whether Full Member, Affiliate, or Associate organisations.

19 September 2012 marked the commencement of operations at the IMRF’s new Asia Pacific Regional Centre (APRC). The centre, located at China Rescue and Salvage’s state-of-the-art Dong Hai Rescue Bureau in Shanghai, will greatly enhance IMRF capability to communicate with and assist maritime rescue organisations throughout this busy region.

Full details of the scheme may be found in the Members’ Area of the IMRF website, www.international-maritimerescue.org. If you need help with logging in, or with the scheme itself, please contact Wendy Webster, the IMRF’s website manager, at w.webster@international-maritimerescue.org. (Readers are reminded that, to facilitate distribution of this newsletter, there are no hyperlinks contained in it. Some email systems dislike hyperlinks! Please copy and paste website or email addresses into your browser or email contacts.)

On the Members Assisting Members webpage you will find a tutorial video which explains how the scheme works: how you can post offers and request specific assistance; and how you can view and manage your posts.

There’s also a Quick Guide and a useful flow chart.

If you are already using the scheme, or if you have suggestions for improving it, please let us know what you think by filling in the short questionnaire to be found at the foot of the webpage.

If you are not yet using the scheme then please do so. You, the Members, asked us to provide it – but only you, the Members, can really make it work!

Remember too that it works both ways. It is there to help Members offer help as well as to ask for it. For example, one Member might need second-hand equipment. Another may be able to provide it. Economies of scale can be achieved by combined ordering. Assistance with training or safety campaigns or fundraising initiatives can be asked for and given. There are many ways in which those in the maritime SAR world can help each other – to the benefit of everyone at risk in the world’s waters.

Members Assisting Members is one way. Why not visit the website now and make a post...?

Capt Song Jiahui, Bruce Reid and Mr Wang Zheng Liang, Director General of China Rescue and Salvage, join in the APRC opening ceremony

World Health Organisation statistics show that some 380,000 people drown each year globally, with almost half of these deaths occurring within the Asia-Pacific region. With these types of numbers the need for a direct presence in the region has become a priority for the IMRF. Following last year’s successful World Maritime Rescue Congress in Shanghai, the initiative gained momentum: IMRF Members China Rescue and Salvage have kindly provided office space within the Dong Hai facility, plus management support and staff.

IMRF’s new CEO Bruce Reid remarked that “This is an exciting international initiative for the IMRF, in partnership with China Rescue and Salvage. We have identified 38 countries within the region who do not have IMRF member organisations. Many of these countries and groups would benefit from the support and collaboration we provide.”

Speaking at the launch ceremony, Capt Song Jiahui, IMRF Trustee and Transportation Safety Secretary of the People’s Republic of China’s Ministry of Transport, pointed out that “one of the earliest recorded instances of a humanitarian rescue service anywhere in the world was close to the location of the new APRC, along the banks of the Yangtze River. It is appropriate that this new centre will continue this noble humanitarian mission, providing lifesaving assistance to those in trouble on the waters of the region.”

The APRC will be managed by the IMRF’s former CEO, Gerry Keeling. Mr Zhang Ron Jung, Deputy Director of the Dong Hai Rescue Bureau, will act as deputy manager, and the new centre will be staffed by two English-speaking CRS personnel on secondment to the IMRF, Mr Gu Yiming and Ms Qiu Jing.

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SAR Matters This is a discussion column intended to provide a forum for LIFE LINE readers worldwide to contribute to debate on any relevant SAR issue.

Please see previous editions of LIFE LINE – available on the website, www.international-maritime-rescue.org – for earlier discussions. Comment and/or new items for discussion should be emailed to news@internationalmaritime-rescue.org.

In our last edition the IMRF’s former Chief Executive, Gerry Keeling, considered the results of our mass rescue conference in Gothenburg in June. He intended to return to the mass rescue subject in this issue, to look at some of the major challenges and some proposals for remedial action.

But other work (see page 5!) has delayed Gerry’s second article: we will feature it in a future LIFE LINE. In this edition – with IMRF Membership very much in mind – we contrast two apparently very different stories from around the world.

On 31 August a traditional pirogue (a flat-bottomed boat used by fishermen and for transport) capsized a few minutes after setting off for Kassa Island from Conakry, the capital of Guinea.

The pirogue was meant to carry about 20 people, but there were reported to have been 58 aboard, many of them women and children. The boat was also carrying bags of cement and flour. It appears that her crew was inexperienced, and strong winds swept her onto rocks.

27 people survived, rescued by fishermen and the local security forces. A search continued all night, but hopes of finding any more people alive had faded by morning. "We are continuing the search without hope of finding survivors, that means about 30 are already dead," rescue official Lanfia Camara told AFP. "It is unthinkable that we could find a survivor in the water after more than 15 hours without rescue. None of the passengers were wearing a life vest when they boarded."

October 2012

Why be an IMRF Member? Well; for one thing, we are determined not to overlook such tragic wastes of life on the world’s waters. SAR, of course, is only part of the story: there is much to be done to improve safety first; to prevent such accidents ever happening. There are common themes: overloading, lack of crew training, lack of safety equipment. The IMRF strongly supports the work being done on accident prevention and mitigation. But SAR is the final part of the picture; and we are here to help support SAR development around the world.

The second story comes from the Caribbean – but, rather like the terrible tale from Guinea, its essentials could have come from many places. The following was written by a new recruit to Virgin Islands Search And Rescue (VISAR): “You want to give something back to the community and you've heard of this organisation of volunteers that give their time willingly to search for and rescue human beings at risk. So you pop up at the base one Monday evening, where they talk about what happened the previous week and they plan the week ahead. Somebody points out that there's a new face in the room, and they all give you a warm welcome. Then you're given a log with skills you need to develop and a “Good Luck!”.

“You keep going every Monday to the meetings and you start your training. You meet the most diverse people, but with something in common that unites them and makes them strong: they are here to save lives. You learn their names, they learn yours. You hear tons of anecdotes; happy ones but also others not so much. And then you realise that they are also there to support each other, knowing that they can count on the person at their side.

“Becoming a crew member scares you a bit but you keep pushing yourself through that log, thanks to the support of the other trainees who are going through the same mixed emotions, but also from the more experienced helms, crew members and coordinators. By now you enjoy going out on Spirit, you feel a bit more comfortable wearing the gear and getting wet in it. You put yourself through controlled simulated situations, and you also build shared moments with those people next to you.

“You know that that day will come where you get that last sign-off in the log and you receive the blue T-shirt at the Monday meeting, together with a big round of applause from your peers. But you know you can already feel proud of yourself for being part of this great organisation of simple human beings, trying as hard as they can to pursue the highest objective in life: to save lives.”

A hospital doctor confirmed that those recovered dead had drowned, “and the survivors are suffering more or less from trauma and fear.” Scores of weeping family members crowded the morgue and hospital for news of their loved ones, the AFP journalist said.

Maximiliano Ferrero writes of the shared aims and support within VISAR; but he could equally well have been describing the IMRF. Worldwide, Maximiliano’s words are the key ones: ‘training ... experience ... support ... diverse people, but with something that unites them: they are here to save lives.’

It’s a tragic story – and one which should be more familiar than it is. But disasters such as this are sometimes overlooked by the world’s press.

SAR is indeed a high objective: and IMRF Members do whatever they can to attain it, and to help others to do so too. page 6

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October 2012

Member Focus: the Swedish Sea Rescue Society Long-time IMRF Member the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (see www.sjoraddning.se) is a non-governmental institution run on a voluntary basis. It operates on the major Swedish lakes as well as at sea, and carries out about 70% of all rescues in Swedish waters. About 95% of the distress calls the SSRS respond to are from pleasure craft.

The Society was founded in 1907, following severe storms in 1903 which revealed short-comings in Sweden’s marine rescue capability. The Society’s function has always been that of saving lives at sea. This task is firmly supported on three pillars: SAR operations, accident prevention, and a firm commitment to research and development.

The SSRS is financed by membership fees and donations, and by voluntary work. In recent years it has doubled the number of its sea rescue stations; has tripled the number of rescue personnel available; and has built 70 new rescue craft.

It now h a s 6 7 r e s c u e stations and 160 high-speed rescue vessels. The SSRS also operates fourteen hovercraft: over the winter much of the water it works on is frozen...

The recent expansion has enabled the SSRS to meet its goal of getting under way in 15 minutes or less from the time an alarm is received. The volunteer crews – about 1,800 of them – live close to their stations and conduct training several times a month. They are available to respond at any time of day or night, whatever the weather.

Altogether they launch about 7,000 times each year.

The large degree of voluntary work enables the Society to manage with a small administration, and much of the cost of its normal activities is covered by its membership fees.

(The Society receives no government funding.)

The SSRS has attracted many of its 80,000 members by offering them a preventative maritime assistance service as well as the opportunity to support the lifeboat service. The idea is that a member can make a call for assistance before a full-scale emergency develops. This way a member can receive help in the event of engine failure or a damaged rudder, say, even if no-one is in immediate danger, thus preventing a mishap becoming a crisis. Through reciprocal arrangements, members can receive similar help in Norway, Denmark, Finland and the Åland islands.

The craft in the SSRS fleet include the following classes.

All are capable of 34 knots.

The hi-tech, 30tonne Rausing class can cope with extreme conditions, and is equipped with ultraviolet equipment for night searches.

(Length: 20m; beam: 5.1m; draught: 0.9m.)

The 12-metre, 13tonne Victoria class was developed by the SSRS’s own engineers and has achieved worldwide recognition. (Beam: 4.2m; draught: 0.7m.)

The Gunnel Larsson class is an 8-metre open rescue vessel, used mainly for inshore rescue work.

(Draught: 1.6m; weight: 2.7 tonnes.)

And the Rescuerunner is a specially made scooter. While driving, the rider can pick up a person in the water within a few seconds. The Rescuerunner is also a key component in the SSRS’s ongoing research in mass rescue at sea. (Length: 3.6m; beam: 1.5m; draught: 0.1-0.3m; weight: 350 kg.)

Led by IMRF Trustee Rolf Westerström, the SSRS is very much accustomed to thinking globally. For example, in July Thore Hagman and Mattias Wengelin of the SSRS conducted the first SAR Systems course within the new Maritime Safety and Environmental Administration programme at the World Maritime University.

The students – from 19 different countries – gave an indepth presentation of their respective SAR systems as part of their exams, including reflections on their fulfilment of international legislation and a comparison with the IAMSAR manual.

An overview and analysis of this material will be presented to the IMRF in due course.

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LIFE LINE

October 2012

Member Focus: Royal Canadian Marine Search & Rescue The Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary comprises five autonomous regional rescue organisations. That covering the Pacific coast has recently changed its name to Royal Canadian Marine Search & Rescue: RCM-SAR. RCM-SAR has 46 stations which, working with the Canadian Coast Guard and other agencies, cover almost 29,000km of coastline (longer than that of the entire United States); much of it a maze of islands and fjords. The stations are almost all community-based with dedicated rescue boats, operated by over 1,000 volunteers on call around the clock and conducting over 800 rescues a year.

Falkins Class – a 33-foot, aluminium, diesel jet -powered, rollover-capable, 40-knot fast rescue craft. The first in the class was launched in 2010 (see LIFE LINE, December 2010). Four more have followed and another five are planned. The class is reported to have received “rave reviews”! A 12-metre Type 3 is also in service and being evaluated to determine the requirements for further vessels in this category.

RCM-SAR have developed a high level of training, including a world-first small rescue vessel simulator, and are proud of their crews’ professionalism: “Volunteer Marine Rescue Crews, Unpaid Professionals”.

Over the last 15 years the fleet too has developed quickly from an operational model using pleasure or commercial vessels to a dedicated fleet of purpose-built fast rescue craft. Owner/operator vessels are now only used where conditions do not allow for anything else, or as a backup resource. For much of this period the vessel plan was based on the Coast Guard model of small, fast, rigid-hull inflatables; but these have now evolved into aluminium construction and T-Top designs. Thanks to effective fundraising and provincial support, RCM-SAR have been able to build up a capable and reliable fleet in a short period of time.

Here we see examples of the 7 to 8 metre T-Top and cabin RHIBs (the open delta console lay-out is also used). These have been the workhorses of the fleet for the last decade.

However, RCMSAR has always been proactive in looking around the world and identifying best practices for training, tasking, equipment and vessel design. In doing so they have noted as best practice the development of specially designed and standardised fleets.

In designing their own vessels, RCM-SAR looked to partners around the world to assist and are now in the early stages of a fleet renewal programme which will eventually see all their vessels replaced by a standard class consistent with the best practices of marine SAR organizations globally.

The first result of the new design approach is the Type 2

In the meantime a standardized outboard-powered RHIB has also been designed and the first vessel is under construction. While it incorporates the proven and reliable performance of the existing RHIBs, it also incorporates leading-edge rescue craft design in a shock mitigating platform for the entire crew station, a significant safety improvement – and another first in rescue vessel technology for Canada.

RCM-SAR have also been innovative in terms of governance, on-line record-keeping – and training. Their SAR Crew Manual standardised and greatly improved training, for example; and in 2009 the first students began taking classes in SARNAV: an advanced simulator that immerses crews in realistic situations where they can regularly and safely practice decisionmaking, rescue planning, helm control, communications, and navigation in worst-case scenarios. A training centre (with fund-raising possibilities) and online and distance learning packages are planned.

In summary, RCM-SAR President Randy Strandt notes that “we spent 30 years watching, observing, and learning from the best and, while this process will never end, we can finally say that we are now also in a place where others around the country and the world look to us for guidance and ideas.” More at rcmsar.com.

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October 2012

The RNLI and international development IMRF Member the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) shares its lifesaving expertise with developing countries in need of help; and reports on this work here.

Overall, drowning claims around 1.2 million lives globally each year – that’s more than the number of people who die from malaria.* In some countries, particularly in areas of Asia, Africa and South America, drowning is the leading cause of child death. Every loss is someone’s son or someone’s daughter. But, despite the scale of the problem, it is barely recognised: a hidden pandemic.

Most drownings happen in the world’s poorest countries, which have either very limited lifesaving services or none at all. Drowning is as preventable as most diseases, and yet there is very little being done to tackle it. What is being achieved is localised and ad hoc. Effective, scalable programmes are urgently needed to help on a local level.

The RNLI is increasing its international work to try and reduce this staggering loss of life by delivering training, equipment and advice – whatever is needed – to save lives. Many drownings happen at the coast, in large bodies of water, or in floods – all environments in which the RNLI has expertise in drowning prevention and can offer help. The aim is to give people the means to help themselves; trying to ensure that developing countries can secure and sustain their own lifesaving services, so that these services can grow organically and go on to save thousands of lives using their own people and skills.

The RNLI are delivering programmes by working with key local, national and international groups. They also work with more developed SAR organisations, providing training, equipment and consultancy. This overseas work is funded by income donated specifically for international programmes, and by profits from sales of consultancy, equipment and training to SAR organisations in developed countries. Programmes ranging from delivering lifeguard training and swim survival training to selling former RNLI lifeboats and providing SAR consultancy have already been conducted in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Senegal, India, Brazil, China, Canada and St Lucia. *Figures for drowning are, at best, estimates: the statistical base is very poor. The percentage lost in waters which may be seen as within the IMRF’s remit is also very uncertain. But, whatever the figure is, it is disgracefully large. (Ed.)

(pictures courtesy of the RNLI / Mike Lavis)

Bangladesh has one of the highest drowning rates in the world: around 18,000 Bangladeshi children drown each year. But hundreds of lives could be saved there every year now that the country’s first lifesaving club has been set up with the help of the RNLI. As reported in LIFE LINE in April, RNLI lifeguard trainers have delivered a comprehensive lifeguard training programme to 15 Bangladeshi volunteers, and a ‘train the trainer’ course, so that the volunteers can go on to teach the skills they have learned to others. They are already using their newly-acquired skills to run the lifesaving club.

And within days of completing their RNLI training they had saved their first life.

In August 2012, lifesaving representatives from Senegal, Cameroon, Uganda, Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Mauritius and the Philippines arrived in the UK for an intensive two-week course, learning vital skills with the RNLI to help develop their lifesaving organisations and save more lives from drowning.

The ‘Future Leaders in Lifesaving’ course was designed to equip them with skills to run effective lifesaving services in their home countries. They learnt how to manage and develop their own organisations, covering subjects such as causes of drowning, the role of a lifeguard, equipment needed to run a lifesaving service, practical lifesaving skills, risk assessments, writing training programmes, and how to run safety education initiatives – all of this tailored to help them apply it to their specific environments. They were based at the RNLI College, where the charity’s volunteer lifeboat crews and lifeguards train.

New and developing lifesaving organisations can struggle to implement effective coastal drowning prevention strategies due to limited training and resources. The RNLI and the International Drowning Research Centre, Bangladesh, have developed the International Beach Lifeguard Instructor Manual, specifically designed for use in areas where specialist equipment and facilities are unavailable. The Manual provides a simple toolkit for lifeguard trainers to refer to, and accompanies a basic student manual and optional teaching aids. It was trialled during the Future Leaders in Lifesaving course, and will be generally available later this year.

To find out more about the RNLI’s international development work, visit www.rnli.org/international.

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LIFE LINE

October 2012

News from South Africa

News from Cape Verde and Gambia

South Africa’s National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) has a proactive educational arm called the WaterWise Academy. They have six instructors around the country who tailor their lessons to help children between the ages of 9 and 14 to avoid trouble when they are in or near water.

IMRF Trustee Udo Fox and regional coordinator Mohammed Drissi have been assisting the IMO by undertaking needs assessment missions to St Vincent, Cape Verde, in June, and Banjul, The Gambia, in August.

Since its inception in 2006 the WaterWise Academy has taught over 200,000 under-privileged children, in the safety of their classrooms, how to avoid dangerous situations on the beach, rivers and dams; what to do in an emergency; who to call and how to do bystander CPR. The WaterWise Academy’s most recent achievement is a video explaining how to avoid rip currents, which are the major cause of drowning on South Africa’s east coast.

The video and a graphic (see below) teach children, and their parents, what to look for and how to react should they be caught in a rip.

You can watch the video by pasting this url into your search engine: https://vimeo.com/47435717.

The NSRI is also a member of the specialist Whale Disentanglement Network; volunteers trained to free whales that periodically get trapped by ropes and buoys during the time that they spend off the South African coast from late winter through summer.

On 18 July the Network received their first call of the season, when the fishing boat Biskop reported a whale caught up off Cape Point.

The NSRI station in Simonstown dispatched their rigid inflatable Eddie Beaumont II to investigate, and the crew was able to confirm that a 9 metre humpback, a young adult, was indeed entangled in rope and three flotation buoys.

Network experts with specialist equipment were then taken offshore

by Simonstown’s Spirit of Safmarine III. The whale’s movement was severely restricted by the rope and, although clearly uncomfortable, it was “reasonably cooperative” as the team cut it free. It then swam off strongly.

The visits were made to strengthen the relationships between the Regional MRCC in Rabat, Morocco (where Mohammed Drissi is Chef de Bureau, SAR National) and the Associated MRCCs in the NorthWest African SAR Region; to identify areas of assistance on SAR facility management; and in preparation for the second meeting of the Regional SAR Committee, to be held 25-27 September.

Vessel Traffic Service Centre & MRCC Mindelo, Cape Verde (above); and a briefing at Bacau lifeboat station, The Gambia (below)

Saving lives on the world’s waters – and not just human ones!

As the assessors noted: “Improving SAR capabilities and other maritime services is foremost a matter of capacity building at the management and operational level, allowing effective and efficient use to be made of limited resources.”

As always, SAR people can help each other: Morocco has generously offered to host and run seminars on SAR administration & management and on search planning and mission coordination for North & West African regional colleagues in Agadir in January.

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LIFE LINE

October 2012

Mass Rescue Operations

Loss of the Skagit On 18 July the ferry Skagit capsized in bad weather and subsequently sank while on passage from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to Zanzibar. She had about 290 people aboard. Half of them died. Her loss follows that of the Spice Islander in the same waters in September last year. More than 200 lives were lost in that disaster.

Once again it appears from the news reports that unsafe operations were responsible for the accident – an unsuitable vessel, at sea in conditions beyond her capability, overcrowded and with a poorly trained crew. Survivors are reported to have said that they received no emergency instructions, and that there was only one exit from the cabin, so that many passengers were trapped below.

It can be said that the best way to deal with the problem of mass rescue operations is to avoid having to conduct them at all. That is facile, of course: accidents happen, no matter how well prepared we are. But it is also true to say that mass rescue should not be considered in isolation.

Disasters like the loss of the Skagit keep on happening, and they should not. They are preventable.

While passenger shipping safety is not a part of the IMRF’s remit, we certainly support all the efforts being made to improve it, whether at the IMO as regards international shipping or in the various fora in which domestic shipping safety is being addressed.

Following our two successful Gothenburg conferences, in 2010 and earlier this year, and the work done at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in 2011, the IMRF’s mass rescue operations project is moving on to its next stages.

Our aims are to share experience and initiatives so as to improve the response to mass rescue incidents wherever they may occur in the world.

Our objectives are to provide an international focus on mass rescue at or by sea, and a forum for discussion; to identify specific problems which would benefit from further research & development; to identify potential amendments to international regulation and guidance; and to compile and host a dynamic, webbased library of practical data.

To these ends we will continue to raise awareness – particularly of the need to plan. We will draw on IMRF Member expertise to build the library of generic guidance, plans, and standard operating procedures, and to help audit progress. We will conduct further conferences and workshops. And we will report to the IMO as appropriate.

There’s a lot to do!

Early work will be on how best to handle mass rescue operations (and, indeed, SAR generally) in ‘remote areas’, where there are few, if any, SAR facilities. We will be seeing if we can improve the current guidance on on-scene coordination. We will also work with the IMO and others to improve the ability of ships and other units to recover people from survival craft or from the water, beginning with a review of the IMO’s Guide to Recovery Techniques (which IMRF Members drafted in the first instance.)

The JPO Vulpecula Rescue On 21 June the Liberian-flagged, German-owned container ship JPO Vulpecula rescued 27 migrants whose boat had capsized in heavy seas between Indonesia and Australia. There had probably been 200 aboard when the accident happened. 109 were saved in total: four by another merchant ship, the Cape Oceania; the rest by two Australian border protection vessels.

After telephone distress calls were received from the boat, an Australian aircraft discovered her 110 miles north of Christmas Island.

Responding to a mayday relay, JPO Vulpecula was the first vessel to arrive at the scene. “We did our best,” said Capt Eric Bilango, “But the weather was very, very rough.” Over three gruelling hours the huge container ship’s crew managed to pull the 27 Afghan and Pakistani survivors aboard.

“It is our duty,” said Capt Bilango.

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LIFE LINE

October 2012

News from Bulgaria On 21 July the much-esteemed CEO of BULSAR (the volunteer Bulgarian search and rescue organisation, and IMRF Member) th celebrated his 75 birthday.

The plaque was inscribed ‘Dear Capt Nick, please accept our best wishes and "keep her steady as she goes"; from the BULSAR team’.

And all Capt Nick’s friends in the IMRF join in that sentiment!

When he arrived at the IMRF’s office in Stonehaven the day before, the sky had been blue and the winds light...

IMRF’s new CEO, Bruce Reid, writes:

Sustainable funding for SAR is an on-going challenge for all of our member organisations as purse strings tighten during these tough economic times.

In my first submission to the newsletter, I thought I’d pass on some knowledge gained in my previous role heading Coastguard in New Zealand, which may provide some food for thought.

In a ceremony in the Varna Town Hall, Mr Kiril Jordanov, the Mayor, awarded Captain Nick Guerchev an honorary plaque celebrating this anniversary.

Bruce’s second day in Scotland.

A word from the Chief Exec

In simple terms, in 2007 Coastguard New Zealand (CNZ) was struggling for funding. Investment was required in training for the volunteers and to upgrade an ageing fleet. But most of the money coming into the organisation was contestable and not guaranteed.

A proposal was put to Government for some of the fuel tax paid by pleasure boaties to be made available to SAR organisations. The tax paid amounted to millions of dollars; but at the time it was going into the roads fund. A change in legislation was required.

Through lobbying by the SAR sector led

by New Zealand Search and Rescue, strongly supported by CNZ , the change in legislation was achieved and just over $8m NZD per annum was released into the sector. The funds were managed through Service Level Agreements with the Government and the individual SAR

Welcome aboard!

organisations and guaranteed a level of financial support for the three years of the agreement.

Before this, support from Government for the primary SAR service provided

by Coastguard was restricted to a $50,000 contribution, plus a small level of direct fuel cost recovery and some funding through the National Lottery.

The agreement has provided just over $2m per annum, and has just been renegotiated for the next three years.

Having a level of guaranteed financial support annually allows time to plan and with planning comes efficiency; the ability to get things done in a structured way. The “user pays” argument put forward to justify the release of tax paid by boaties to support the rescue of boaties proved effective. And the national collaboration of all the SAR organisations provided an incredibly strong lobby group.

It’s great to be on board at the IMRF and I look forward to working closely with you all as we continue to find ways of working together to reduce the loss of life on the worlds waters.

And finally...

We hope that you have found this issue of LIFE LINE informative and interesting. We know that there is much more going on among IMRF’s membership that could be reported here, to the benefit of all – but we rely on you, the reader, to tell us about it! LIFE LINE and the IMRF website need you to provide their contents – your news, your projects, your events, your ideas, your lessons learned.

We also need your pictures, please: good quality pictures (more than 250 kB, if possible) of your SAR units – boats, ships, aircraft, RCCs etc. These will be used in LIFE LINE and on the website – but are also needed for presentations and to accompany press articles about the IMRF and its worldwide work.

Please send articles and pictures (or links to them, with formal permission for them to be used for IMRF purposes) to news@international-maritime-rescue.org.

Let’s spread the word, for the benefit of all at risk on the world’s waters.

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