Aboard the £2.5 million life-saving vessel

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Transcript

00:00We've had the Shannon for about three years now on station and previously had a

00:03Trent class lifeboat. The difference being is that the Shannon class is

00:08driven by water jets. It's massively more manoeuvrable than any of the other life

00:14boats in the fleet. You can literally walk it sideways, you can spin on a six

00:20pence, the stopping ability, it's got great towing ability as well so it's a

00:27fantastic all-round boat, do almost anything you want it to. It's just under

00:31two and a half million pounds per boat for the Shannons. We have a crew of five

00:36or six on the Shannon. Everyone has a seat and every seat has a role assigned

00:40to it so in there you'll have the helmsman who's driving the boat, radar

00:45operator, mechanic, coxswain and navigator plus a number six seat for the sixth

00:50crew member. The coxswain won't normally drive the boat when it's at sea, he'll

00:56take it off the berth and he'll do what we need to do when we get on scene to

01:01take casualty in tow or take some people off a boat or do a search but you

01:06normally have a helmsman driving the boat, the coxswain will be in the command seat so

01:09everyone is involved, everyone's got a job to do all the time. I've been at the

01:13station now for six years. My role was gradually evolving through the time

01:18that I've been here. I started off just as crew and then on navigation.

01:23Navigation is quite a key role on the boat. You've got an open sea out there

01:28which is not really open. You've got lots of rules to follow. We do have a rules of

01:34the road just the same as the highway code and out there there's sets of

01:38voyage. All these buoys have a meaning. They can tell you to keep on one side or

01:44the other side. They could be restricted for certain vessels. You've got to be on

01:50the right-hand side of the road as part of instead of the left-hand side of the

01:53road. Now that's one big change. It's a big learning curve. It's quite immense.

01:59It's one of the hardest roles to learn because there's just so much to

02:03memorize but anyone can do it. You don't need to have any maritime experience to

02:10take this on. You just start one step at a time.