Luke Bishop who is a volunteer at Tower lifeboat station in London, visited Rye Harbour RNLI on Sunday March 4 to experience a different type of vessel and environment from the Thames.
He is part of the crew at one of the busiest RNLI stations in the country. In 2017 they were called out 520 times to incidents ranging from broken-down vessels to people (or the occasional animal) in distress in the water.
Luke said: “It is always interesting and exciting to see a different lifeboat station. We are all part of the RNLI family.” He received a warm welcome from Tony Edwards, Lifeboat Operations Manager (LOM) and the volunteers who were there for a regular training session.
On returning to shore Luke commented: “I really enjoyed my visit to Rye Harbour station. It was interesting to see how an Atlantic 85 operates, and whilst there is a lot of familiar kit on board, it’s still a very different boat from the E Class at Tower. Recovering onto the trailer was a new experience; good to see all the crew and the tractor driver working so well together to recover the boat safely.”
Photos: kt Bruce