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Displaying items by tag: AllWeather Lifeboat (ALB)

Next month sees the introduction of the first RNLI Tamar-class lifeboat to enter service at an Irish lifeboat station, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Costing €3m, the RNLB Killarney is to be stationed in Kilmore Quay. The new vessel is expected to make her delivery voyage on 13 October. She is to replace the existing Tyne-class lifeboat, RNLB The Famous Grouse at the Co. Wexford station which was established in 1847.

The Tamar-class is the latest high-tech craft within the RNLI lifeboat fleet in use throughout the UK. Around 17 craft of the class, named after
the River Tamar, Cornwall have entered service. Some of the class are constructed exclusively for the purposes of providing relief duties across
the extensive network of 235 lifeboat stations throughout the UK and Ireland.

One of these relief lifeboats, RNLB Frank and Ann Wilkinson (16-06) arrived in Dun Laoghaire in July from Poole, Dorset, the headquarters of the RNLI. The lifeboat carried out crew training exercises, not just for the local lifeboat crew but other station crews as part of the Irish divisional staff training programme.

The fleet is divided into two categories: inshore and all-weather class lifeboats (ALB). Of the ALB's there are currently five classes: Tyne, Mersey, Trent, Severn and Tamar. These boats can be operated safely in all weathers and are designed to self-right in the event of a capsize.

The lifeboats are fitted with navigation, location and communication equipment with the RNLI policy of operating each craft for around 25 years. The introduction of the RNLB Killarney at Kilmore Quay will enhance the organisation's vital services off the south-east coast.

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Published in RNLI Lifeboats

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.