Wednesday 30th July 2008

B is for........... Breeches Buoy.

For the second week running I'm using a piece of equipment that we use on the Lifeboat................This week a Breeches Buoy, which, as the Wikipedia definition says........is a crude rope-based rescue device used to extract people from wrecked vessels, or to transfer people from one location to another in situations of danger. The device resembles a round emergency personal flotation device with a leg harness attached. It is similar to a zip line.The breeches buoy was usually deployed from either ship to ship, or ship to shore using a lyle gun, and allowed single person evacuations......It may be crude but it is very effective. Thankfully I have never had to use it for real but I do have to know how to deploy it and to this end we (the crew at Ramsey Lifeboat Station) practice the drill on a regular basis and as it happened back in February this year I was one of the casualties being rescued.......But first...............we had to be stranded to be rescued so myself and a fellow crew member Darren, inflated the dinghy and rowed over to a rocky outcrop which was directly under Maughold lighthouse. Just to make things a tad easier we carried the wooden pulley and rope with us. In a real emergency situation these would be thrown to the casualties either with aid of a heaving line or rocket line. The pulley has a tag with instructions written on it along with a fairly long piece of rope which is attached securely to a suitable place. On board the Lifeboat there are two very long pieces of rope which are placed bow and stern (this is what we took in the boat with us) and this is threaded through the pulley and the two ends joined with a lifebelt forming a large loop........ This then can be pulled by the casualties who can step into the lifebelt and then in turn be pulled by the crew towards the boat for a very welcome rescue............The above photos were taken by one of the crew who remained on board. The last one shows yours truly being hauled towards the Ann & James Ritchie and safety. Even though it was early February I wasn't too cold as I was wearing all my own clothes as well as an RNLI regulation dry suit, helmet and life-jacket so I was fairly comfortable and I never got wet.....If you found all this interesting you can follow what I get up to on different exercise and shouts on my other site www.freewebs.com/mannanans cloak.