The charity’s Trainee Crew Course was held at the Sea Survival Centre at the RNLI College in Poole, Dorset where four Bude lads — Kieran Marshall, 19, Daniel Lewis-Bale, 20, James Lewis-Bale, 20 and Steve Carter, 37 — travelled to receive their training.
The vital element of the course was for the volunteer crew to learn sea survival.
Training included: ‘abandon ship’ safely with a four-metre jump into water; team survival swimming; coping in a liferaft in simulated darkness; dealing with fires aboard the lifeboat; right a capsized inshore lifeboat and the importance of lifejackets.
Lifeboat operations manager Chris Wilson said: ‘The support given by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation is hugely important to the RNLI. We are extremely grateful that it has chosen to fund sea survival training, which teaches vital core skills to our volunteer crew.
‘This training is central to allowing the RNLI and its volunteers to stay safe while on rescue missions. It equips volunteers with essential sea survival skills; providing them with the courage, poise and self-confidence to save lives even in the most perilous seas.’
Lloyd’s Register Foundation is a UK-registered charity that invests worldwide in science, engineering and technology for public benefit. The Trust is funding the sea survival element of the Trainee Crew Courses for a five-year period from January 2011 to December 2015. They have offered additional funding of almost £1-million to bring the support total to just over £1.5-million.
Steve Carter, one of the four Bude men to take part in the training said: ‘The training facilities and equipment at the RNLI College are outstanding — facilities include the largest sea training pool in the country. which is amazing.
“The instructors made the learning enjoyable and they taught in a style that kept you interested and was easy to understand. You can tell that they all really enjoy their jobs.’
The training has already proved to be useful when Kieran Marshal, of Bude, was part of the crew that assisted the RNLI lifeguard over the August Bank Holiday weekend. They joined a call-out to return four stranded people to the shore after they had become stranded on rocks by a fast incoming tide.