Fuel Costs Hit Life-Boat Rescues Posted on August 25th
10:39am UK, Monday August 25, 2008
Katie Stallard,
in Cornwall
The RNLI has been forced to put a 20-knot speed limit on all non-emergency call-outs and training as a result of the massive increase in the cost of fuel over the past year.
The RNLI saves lives but now it is being forced to save fuel
It estimates its annual fuel bill this year will be up 100%, from £1.5m for 2007 to £3m for 2008.
It is not hard to see why - a trent-class, all-weather lifeboat at top speed uses 360 litres of fuel an hour. And whereas last year marine diesel cost 38p/litre, now it has shot up to 72.4p.
So, fuel efficiency has suddenly become critical. Although at top speed (24 knots) the lifeboat uses 360 litres an hour, at 20 knots, with the engine below 2000rpm, the rate drops to below 100 litres an hour.
The result is that coxswains and crew are now being trained in fuel conservation.
RNLI divisional manager Barry Wagstaff said: “Everybody knows about fuel efficiency with their cars. So what we can do with the lifeboats is drop back to 20 knots on non-emergency operations to save fuel.
“The coxswains are educated and disciplined in this but ultimately they make the decision - if there’s someone in trouble, if they get a shout, then it’s business as usual.”
‘Business as usual’ for the lifeboatmen can be pretty tough.
Sky’s Katie Stallard on RNLI exercise
Sky News went on exercise with the RNLI off Fowey in Cornwall last week. The scenario: a family stranded on cliffs, cut off by the rising tide.
Heading out to sea we crashed through wave after beligerent wave - each one thrusting us up and on towards the horizon, then dumping us violently, unceremoniously back down again.
The coxswain tells us to hold on and brace against the movement. Back-spray drenched us in unannounced icy bursts. The driving rain was constant.
“On a scale of one to 10, how bad would you say this is?” cameraman Ed Bayliss shouted to the coxswain.
“Oh, this is just a five,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Had this been real, the job of our lifeboat would have been to locate the stranded family and pinpoint their exact position so that the in-shore lifeboat could be launched to go in to the base of the cliffs, or a coastguard helicopter scrambled to winch them to safety.
It is a scenario that is all too familiar to the crew - in the seven days before our filming the Fowey lifeboat was launched seven times, one of which was to a cliff rescue.
Up and down the country the lifeboats are in similar action and on constant call - in an average day the RNLI will launch 22 times.
Last year they saved 306 lives. They are one of our most visible and highly-regarded institutions, but what may not be so well known is that they receive no Government funding whatsoever so all of their costs have to be met by fundraising.
Raising an extra £1.5m to cover the rising fuel costs would be hard enough at the best of times, but with family food and fuel bills rocketing too, individual households are being squeezed so there is less money to spare to donate to charity.
So, fuel efficiency is the plan, and perhaps a fitting portent to our changing financial times.
What is not likely to alter though, is the dedication and professionalism of the lifeboat crews.