Tuesday, May 01, 2012

The Thames needs Lifeboats!

The people of London are concerned.

"Why oh why are there no lifeboat services on the Thames?" ask 84% of them and two thirds of Londoners agree there should be one.

But what's strange is that there are indeed lifeboats - in fact there are four RNLI stations on the Thames which are the busiest in Britain and have been supporting this stretch of water for 10 years now.

"C'est bizzare"

6 comments:

Bursledon Blogger said...

2500 people rescued in 10 year?, that's getting on for 5 a week - what sort of trouble are those people getting into?

not sure i want to walk along the embankment today sounds too dangerous

JP said...

Key tips for not requiring lifeboat services:
1) do NOT try to swim the river in central London
2) do NOT stand on bridges as if about to jump off
3) do NOT actually jump off any of the bridges
4) do NOT go on to the shore line at low tide and stand where there are no steps up and wait for the tide to come in
5) do NOT drink 6 units of alcohol and then drive a power boat at 20kn through central London
6) do NOT kayak on the river without a life jacket and then capsize

If you can avoid this basic errors (and I have confidence you can) you should be fine :)

Towpath Tanya said...

Great list, JP!

And yer could add not sleepin' one off below the tide line.

Woke up more than once in a scramble with me knickers wet - and not why yer think.

Pat said...

So what were some of the strangest rescues?

Blue Turtle said...

I agree. The more lifeboats the safer and the better. It may be beneficial to increase the awareness of the public about safety. Is the Thames really that dangerous that it needs to add more lifeboats?

J. Harp
writer @ pedal boat

JP said...

The Thames is quite well equipment with life boats but they are very busy with 919 launches last year.

What is more important is that people know they are there so well (say) someone falls in they know to ask for them.

Having said that its a sad fact that many of the cases they deal with are due to people deliberately putting themselves in danger.