[Kieran:] Good morning.
[speaker002:] Good morning to you.
[Kieran:] What happened to sunshine?
[speaker002:] I don't know. You might have arranged it better.
[Kieran:] [LAUGHTER]
[speaker002:] How many lifeboats are you going to land on today sir?
[Kieran:] Well we're going to have two. We have this one and then we're going further south and operate with the other, the second one.
[speaker002:] What happens now, now that you are winched down?
[Kieran:] Well the aircraft, simply do an orbit, come back around, back into wind and then come winching in under my directions using hand signals. Th the only thing I mentioned to the crew is to be aware of static, there's a lot of static electricity at the moment. So er just er let me handle that. Okay?
[speaker002:] Yes, thank you. [helicopter]
[Kieran:] Kieran, winch man on the Sumburgh coastguard helicopter, and the rest of the duty crew that morning were winch operator Terry, pilot Norman and copilot Tim. The honourary medical officer of the Longhope lifeboat is Dr Tony, and he would normally be assisting casualties to be uplifted, but that day he himself was to be winched up from the lifeboat to the helicopter, and once that part of the exercise was completed and he was back, safely on deck, I asked him, How was that?
[Tony:] That was great. Absolutely
[speaker002:] You enjoyed it?
[Tony:] lovely, it was a bit of an anticlimax I thought. I mean I thought I'd be absolutely frightened out of my mind but erm no. I think you just have a philosophical attitude, if they're going to drop you, they drop you and that's that's
[speaker002:] What did he mean when he's saying the static?
[Tony:] Static electricity.
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[Tony:] Well it's like getting out of a car on a hot day and putting your putting your hand on the door, I think. But I didn't feel anything. The only thing was noise.
[speaker002:] Have you done it before?
[Tony:] I was involved a few years ago in the in the Lance, the rescue er That the lance went ashore on Hoy and er the helicopter there took the casualties of the Lance and dropped
[speaker002:] Yeah.
[Tony:] them onto the lifeboat.
[speaker002:] Was that a soft landing you had back there?
[Tony:] No, I got a very sore
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Yes. Dr Tony, honourary medical officer. Once the exercise was completed satisfactorily, the coastguard helicopter duly saluted us and flew of at speed to rendezvous with the Stromness lifeboat. The Longhope boat, the David and Elizabeth King, E B, is a solent class self righting lifeboat and has been on station since nineteen seventy. Once she was safely winched back up the slipway into the lifeboat shed, I spoke to some of the crew. Firstly, Jack, coxswain, since nineteen seventy. Are you going to be sorry to see that boat go?
[Jack:] Och well you have to shift with the times, and the new boat which is much faster will be a great help.
[speaker002:] Have you been out with the helicopter before?
[Jack:] Yes, quite often. We've been exercises, this is the third exercise with the helicopter.
[speaker002:] When was the last called out? Not on exercise with the helicopter?
[Jack:] That'll have been the trawler run ashore on on er Pearworth Gareth and we were all come ashore on but it wasn't er. I think that'll been the last helicopter.
[speaker002:] Have you worked with that helicopter that was on exercise today?
[Jack:] Well er everything, Navy helicopter from Lossiemouth, we were out with
[speaker002:] The big Seakings?
[Jack:] Seakings. We're were out with before. Yes, we're never out on an exercise with the
[speaker002:] Jackie, coxswain of the Longhope lifeboat, who was awarded the R N L Is bronze medal for gallantry for his part in the rescue of the crew of the Ross Turn from the Taft Tail of Swona in nineteen seventy three. The new Longhope lifeboat will be a forty seven foot tyne class, fast slipway launch. She'll be a tonne lighter in weight but very much faster. I asked the mechanic, Ian, who'd looked after the David and Elizabeth King, if he'd regret seeing her go?
[David:] No I'm I'm really looking forward to getting the new lifeboat, because I think it'll be a great advantage from the station here. At least we'll have a lot of speed, The show a big advantage and a bigger speed, er out here.
[speaker002:] Have you had any problems with this one over the years?
[David:] Oh none at all. It's gone like a dream, it's er I've had no major problems with it at all. It's just been a good boat to us. Really.
[speaker002:] But you are going to be sorry to see that one go because you've looked after her for so long.
[David:] Ah yes I have looked after it for ever since it was new and er and it was the one that reopened the station after the boat's lost here, but as I say you've got to look forward and I think it's a good idea to to have a new boat here. Cos it's a good young crew, and everybody's pretty enthusiastic.
[speaker002:] Ian, mechanic. Billy has also been in the crew since the David and Elizabeth King came on station. And I asked him about that particular morning's exercise with the coastguard helicopter.
[Billy:] Well it's like what most exercises are, it seems like a lot of nonsense but actually when it comes to the crunch, you actually know what's going to happen, you know the the procedures and everything like that. So that it's it it has certainly got a lot of value an exercise like that, even with entirely good conditions.
[speaker002:] How many exercises have you done with the Sumburgh coastguard before?
[Angus:] Oh we've done two or three, we usually do one Well er I wouldn't regularly but probably one every year or you ken something like that.
[speaker002:] Today it was winching.
[Billy:] That's just what they usually do for an exercise, there's no much You cannot actually simulate an actual rescue so that's the best you can do.
[speaker002:] But the conditions today weren't exactly calm anyway so it was a pretty fair exercise.
[Billy:] Well I suppose but er you can imagine a lot worse than that.
[speaker002:] Billy. And the rest of the crew that morning were Billy, second coxswain, John, assistant mechanic, Jimmy and Vincent. Also Angus, who was the youngest on board that day.
[Angus:] Well I'm not actually signed up but I'm going to start signing up now as a crew member. I just go out on exercises now and again, fill in for somebody.
[speaker002:] You have a relative though, already on the crew?
[Angus:] Yeah, dad, he's the coxswain. And I also have a brother that's on the crew.
[speaker002:] Have your family always been involved with the lifeboat?
[Angus:] As far as I've been told and remember, Dad's always been on the boat, yeah. Different boat.
[speaker002:] Will you going to on the new one? Will you be here when it comes, do you think?
[Angus:] Yeah. By that time hopefully I'll be signed up as a crew member.
[speaker002:] Angus. And my thanks to all connected with the Longhope lifeboat, for my day out. I spoke later to Jackie, lifeboat secretary, and asked him how many of a crew he had to call on at any time.
[Jackie:] We now have fifteen men who have past the medical exam and the board of trade eyesight test and are now fully enrolled lifeboat crew. There is one or two not quite completed training yet.
[speaker002:] There's a great family tradition, obviously, in Longhope as there must be in every Orkney and Shetland lifeboat.
[Jackie:] Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah the the crew seems to evolve. The the father would be on the boat, and the son would, as a young boy, would come to meet the workers that came back and he begins to help with the ropes and the winching up of the boat and the washing down, and so on, of the boat after she's been on service, and so on. And as the years go by and the father retires the son comes on to the boat, so it is really a very family thing, the lifeboat service.
[speaker002:] What particular memories have you got of this lifeboat?
[Jackie:] My memories of this boat would be mainly the the big rescue she did and the Taft Tail of swanal Aberdeen trawler Ross Turn. Was ashore in a cleft among the rocks there and the the lifeboat had to turn in a position that was just about twice her own length. The crew were all clinging on to the side of the trawler and the last men off, Billy and John took 'em They got hold of them by one leg and they pulled them off. And the lifeboat was able to turn and to get safely back out again. Which was really quite a rescue. I out there the next day and all that was showing above the water was the mast. Wee bit at the top of the mast of the trawler. She has sunk by that time. My earliest memory of rescued people being landed by the lifeboat would be in the nineteen thirties, see. Going down with my dad who had been president of the lifeboat here for about fifty years, to meet the lifeboat as come in with survivors, I was just a wee boy at the time but I remember the Icelandic trawler, the Geyser and one of the first to be put ashore off the lifeboat that night, was a wee lassie, and she came across the pier and she came to me, because I was the only kid down there that night. And er maybe about five six years ago, a parcel of blankets came from Iceland for the Longhope lifeboat, from this same woman, and there had been no contact whatsoever between the time she was rescued and then, which was amazing.
[speaker002:] Have you heard from her since then?
[Jackie:] Never never heard from her at all since then. But it is the R N L I it's something like a huge club because er go where you like, you're always received well among the fishermen and the shipping people. And so I've quite often been in Stromness and somebody said to me, how are you getting home tonight? You see? As much as to say, well if you need a lift home, just let me know. So it is It's a marvellous thing really, the R N L I. [tape change]