FAY TRAVELS: RNLI station Tour

The water is dark and murky with the Thames about 8C year round or about 46 degrees . When we were there the tide was going out, and there is a horrific current. This is called the the Neap Tide~the lowest tide where the earth, moon and the sun are all lined up. The Tower Lifeboat station is located next to the Waterloo Bridge, downtown London between the Westminister Bridge and the Blackfriers Bridge on the Thames.

The RNLI is not the Coast Guard, but they are a lifeboat station. The RNLI bought the station from the London Police in 2002 for 1 pound (about $1.50 US), where it was then redone into the Tower Lifeboat station. They do work with HMS Coast Guard when they are summoned at the Lifeboat station by a phone call with requests to respond. This station is the only full time manned station with 24/7 shifts. They work 4 on and 4 off, 12 hour shifts. They have at the station 10 paid full time staff and 14 volunteers that have been trained to work with the full time employees. And just for your information, there is 1 full time female Helmsman and 8 female volunteers. They have 1 Helmsman and 3 crew per boat.

There are 2 lifeboats stationed here at Tower and there are 6 boats total that are within the UK. The Tower station alone handles between 300 to 400 response cases a year, in their 14 miles of area of responsibility. The lifeboats are 9 meters long or about 30 feet long. They also have surf boats like the US Coast Guard, but not here at the Tower station. In comparison to our crew and coxswain... if there is no cabin on the RNLI boat you are called a HELMSMAN... if there is a cabin on the boat you are called a COXSWAIN.

Two weeks ago they pulled 96 people out of the water. They had a dragon boat race.. but they forgot to take into account the large tour boats going by at a fast speed. and they pulled out 96 people in one afternoon. Marine traffic was their biggest flaw...

The biggest culprit is people jumping off bridges and marine traffic hitting the smaller boat..

Today's tide was the lowest... with a 7.3 Spring tide...

And just as a FYI: Helo's are not allowed to fly over the city (except for Police Helo's) so they have to follow along the river. They also do not use flares here, it would be to damaging for the pilots.