RNLI Community Safety – Thanet Community Safety Team
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Every year lifeboat crews and lifeguard’s save the lives of hundreds of people and rescue thousands more. But the stark reality is, we can’t save everyone. Around 190 people die in British and Irish waters each year. Around half of those people didn’t even intend to get wet. Through our prevention work, we strive to reduce fatalities and incidents in, on and by the water. And it’s our aim to halve coastal drowning in the UK and Ireland by 2024.
Community Safety Team’s are absolutely crucial in helping to achieve this aim by providing free water safety and education to everyone who visits the coast. This advice is especially tailored to sailers, fishermen, kayakers, dog walkers, kite surfers, paddle boarders, divers, open water swimmers amongst others.
Thanet Community Safety team undertaking a coastal dog safety session
Drowning prevention is a key part of our work. Around the UK and Ireland, community safety volunteers help to raise awareness and influence people’s behaviour. Our community safety team uses a variety of engagement tactics to improve awareness, refresh and remind coastal visitors about aspects of coastal safety. Find out more about these engagement tactics.
Ramsgate’s Inshore Atlantic 85 Lifeboat (ILB)
Respect the Water and RNLI Community Safety
Respect the Water is the RNLI’s national drowning prevention campaign. It highlights the risks, helps you avoid them and gives advice to keep you and your friends and family safe. We want you to enjoy the water, but also to recognise its dangers and never underestimate its power. For more information on our involvement in previous Respect the Water campaign’s.
Community Safety team members chatting to a boat owner
The RNLI Thanet Community Safety team are also available on request to provide advice and guidance on a variety of topics including:
Advice Onboard (AOB) – An AOB visit entails an open discussion with any boat user (sailing, kayaking, angling etc.) on how to use safety equipment, how to maintain it and how to plan for things that might go wrong out at sea. These visits take place wherever the users boat happens to be – a harbour, marina, boatyard or on the back of their trailer at home
Lifejacket Clinics – A lifejacket clinic can happen at a variety of locations, harbours and boat clubs. It provides users with a chance to bring their lifejackets along and for us to demonstrate how they should be worn, have them checked for faults, and what should be routinely checked on an on-going basis.. Over the years, on average, we find that 30% of inflatable lifejackets (automatic and manual) would not have worked if the wearer accidentally fell into the water. The cause of these failures is easily identified and often remedied.
Man Overboard (MOB) When asked about their experience of safety incidents, 1 in 8 people said that they had gone overboard while sailing a yacht. Why not arrange an interactive talk for your club to discuss the issues surrounding Man Overboard, its prevention and their recovery.
Our Community Safety Officer delivering a Thanet Coastal Patrol Briefing
Thanet’s four priorities
The four coastal based activities that are targeted in the Thanet area:
1) Swimming;
2) Yacht sailing and motor boating;
3) In-water play/beach users; and
Why not check out our blog page wich is updated weekly on our team’s lifesaving activity and top safety tips. You may also like to sign-up for our monthly newsletter which is delivered to straight your inbox for free to keep you abreast of everything we are up to.
