A total of 18 volunteers were taken out on ‘acquaint trips’, which aim to familiarise potential crew members with lifeboat duty, after being selected from a field of more than 80 Islanders who applied to become crew members.
The charity is looking to re-man the George Sullivan all-weather lifeboat in St Helier after its crew walked out last year following the sacking of coxswain Andy Hibbs.
RNLI fleet staff coxswain Phill Corsi, who is responsible for training the new crew, said that the acquaint trips are designed to determine whether volunteers feel they can cope with life as a lifeboat crew member.
‘We have to take them out for three acquaint trips of two hours and we speak to them at different stages to see if they are still interested in being a crew member,’ he said.
‘Sometimes all it takes is being in choppy seas while wearing a harness and a headset for people to say “no thank you, this is not for me”. Or they might say that they want to continue.
‘It’s after the acquaint trips that the real training begins. They will have an RNLI medical and start training with us. Many of them have full-time jobs and family commitments so we have to be able to be flexible with their training needs.
‘We are available 16 hours a day and seven days a week. On average you would expect it to take about one year to fully train someone but it depends on their commitments.’
Mr Corsi, who is usually based in the UK, added that he believes Jersey should have no problem finding a new coxswain from its relatively large population.
‘Jersey is an Island with a large population so I am sure that there will be plenty of people interested in a full-time paid role. We just need to speak to them,’ he said.
Helier De Veulle of the St Catherine’s lifeboat crew, who is assisting with the training, said that the right individuals need to be found to fill a number of key roles on the lifeboat.
‘We need to find someone at the level of coxswain, mechanic and navigators – those are the roles which are required,’ he said.
‘We are going through the recruits to see who is best placed to fill these roles. We have existing helms who could fill the navigator roles but it is a question of who comes forward.’
Last Wednesday potential new crew members had a surprise call out during a training exercise to assist three Russian ballet dancers who were stranded at Elizabeth Castle.
