We’re very pleased to say that the review process that the lifeboat crew, St John Cymru, and HMCG have been working through has now been fully completed and all of Ferryside Lifeboat’s assets are available for service 24×7.
We want to massively thank our community, volunteers and friends for their patience and support and we’re incredibly proud to be able to continue serving them.
It is with sadness that we yesterday had to say goodbye to one of our longest serving crew members, Ship’s Dog, Blue.
Blue will be very much missed around the lifeboat station, even though we will now be able to eat our bacon sandwiches in safety.
Fair winds and blue sky Blue!
Ferryside Lifeboat’s new rescue hovercraft was delivered on Saturday following its initial sea trials, and has now been handed over to the crew to start training on the craft before it goes fully operational.
The craft was a little busier than expected though when, whilst it was undergoing trials, the lifeboat received a call regarding a quad bike that had sunk deep into mud on Llansteffan beach. With the tide too low to launch the main lifeboat, Keith Smallwood of Vortex Hovercraft was able to successfully ferry 4 lifeboat crew across the river and mud in the new machine to deal with the problem.
The lifeboat crewmen were then able to dig around the quad bike and then pull it free safely before the tide came in.
The hovercraft, which was the result of a grant from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, is expected to go fully live late in 2017.
Over the last week a number of Ferryside Lifeboat crew were suffering from the nerves and anxiety of taking a driving test again.
These weren’t normal car tests though, these were for the Category H class of vehicles – to allow our crew to drive our new tracked launch vehicle – the Talus
Although the Talus will primarily used to travel up and down the slipway to launch the lifeboat, as the public are allowed to use the foreshore, all drivers must hold an appropriate driving licence to comply with the law.
We had hoped it would be possible to conduct the entire test on the foreshore and the beach, however it is a strict DVSA test requirement that the crew must go onto a public road and mingle with the traffic – and so for a few days, the Talus was a familiar site on the Ferryside roads.
For most of the crew this was the first driving test in many years, so revising the highway code, obscure road signs and polishing out the few bad habits that had crept in over the years, was a priority in the weeks before.
The good news is that all passed their tests, and we now have 12 crew fully qualified to drive the vehicle.
We really appreciate the patience of the village whilst these tests took place, and we’re sorry if we caused delays and disruption to your day!
Having recently been awarded a UK government grant for an inshore rescue hovercraft, we’ve been busy working with a number of hovercraft companies around the UK to find a supplier.
We’ve been through an in-depth selection process to find the company best placed to meet our very specific needs and we’re delighted to announce that Vortex Services have been chosen to provide our new craft,
We’ll be purchasing a twin-engined version of their Mistral hovercraft, modified to suite our search and rescue function.
We were massively impressed with Vortex’s performance, capability and expertise and we’re really looking forward to taking deliver of the hovercraft – which is being purpose built for our specifications and is scheduled to be ready towards the end of May.
We’d like to thank all the suppliers involved in the selection process for their time and professionalism in working with us.
We're delighted to welcome a grant from the UK Government for a new rescue hovercraft - the first of it's kind in Wales.
This new craft will complement the existing Lifeboat in use at Ferryside and will help operations in low tide conditions, potentially leading to more lives being saved.
National Coastwatch Worm’s Head has posted some photos of Ferryside Lifeboat on a training exercise on the River Towy.
The training took place on the Towy at high tide by Carmarthen bridge. The exercise simulated a casualty in the water who’d let off a distress flare.
The boat quickly came alongside and recovered the casualty safely – to the relief of the crew member who had ‘volunteered’ to jump in the rather cold water!
A big thank you to all who braved the gales and driving rain and came along to our annual New Year’s Day Dip at the foreshore. It was a bit of a mud run with the tide fully out but great fun as usual.
Below is a picture of the brave fools who went in again this year, wearing lederhosen in honour of our newest Coxswain. Thanks everyone!
Happy New Year!… I know it’s a bit late but as usual we’re all tied up taking care of various things and unfortunately the website doesn’t always get the love it deserves.
The crew are very pleased to announce only seven call outs in 2013 despite all the good weather we had. Sadly many of the call outs we did have were quite serious and we’re pleased that nobody came to any serious harm. Please keep an eye on tides and weather before you venture out near the water.
We have been planning activities for the year and we can now announce that the annual Welsh Open Water Estuary Swim will be held on the 21st June 2014. it’s a little earlier than the usual August date but this is to ensure that the tide will be right. As always, swimmers’ safety is paramount. There’s more information about the event in the dedicated page – just click on the sidebar.
Yes it’s that time of year again. This year we wanted to go back to having a real ‘show’ for everybody to enjoy so we are pleased to announce that we have Rod Stevens – The UK’s premier comedy stage hypnotist performing this year.
As usual the ticket price includes free food courtesy of the Three Rivers Hotel and Spa.
In addition to Rod Stevens we have DJ Gar and MC Tony Bean.
Tickets only £5 – an absolute steal considering the entertainment and food included. Doors open at 7pm.
Saturday November 2nd.
Tickets available from Lifeboat Crew, on the door (if not sold out) or we hope to have them in the Ferry Cabin, Steve’s Shop and Post Office soon…
Here’s a link to an excellent article in H2OpenWater magazine about the 2013 Welsh Open Water Estuary Swim
Here are the unofficial times for the Welsh Open Water Estuary Swim 2013.
Your time will be printed under your picture below. If you are a leisure swimmer who started 2 minutes later than the club swimmers then remember to deduct 2 minutes from the time printed.
