Coffey's team biography is on the official expedition website here.
Bear Grylls and his team of adventurers have enlisted the help of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) ahead of their next expedition. Trainers at the charity that saves lives at sea took the team through essential survival techniques and capsize drills, usually taught to volunteer lifeboat crew members, in preparation for their navigation of the Northwest Passage in a RIB later in the year.
Alongside Bear, the team includes Tim Levy, founder of Future Fuels, which is sponsoring the expedition Dave Pearce, Ben James and David Segel. The crew arrived at The Lifeboat College in Poole on Saturday 10 April for an intensive day of training in the sea survival pool. They learned how to right a capsized RIB (rigid inflatable boat), pack, fit and inflate a lifejacket and survive in a liferaft in lifelike conditions.
As a venue designed to train volunteer lifeboat crews, the sea survival pool at The Lifeboat College is no ordinary swimming pool. Instead, the charity’s trainers can reproduce rough sea conditions with frightening realism in the un-heated pool. Bear and the team were subjected to waves, wind and rain in pitch darkness with thunder and lightening as well.
Bear said: ‘We came to the RNLI because I know the charity operates a world class lifeboat service and trains ordinary people to do extraordinary things – saving lives. There’s no better place to do our training. To benefit from the RNLI’s of expertise is invaluable for us.’
Bear and his team will be navigating through the Northwest Passage in Arctic Canada in an icebreaking RIB. The trip, sponsored by Future Capital Partners and Future Fuels, will take the team through ice strewn waters and raise awareness of climate change.
The sea survival training at the RNLI gives Bear and the team the tools to increase their chances of survival if they capsize or are forced to abandon ship into a liferaft. It’s similar to the training that the RNLI’s volunteer lifeboat crew members complete.
