Busiest year to date for Hamble lifeboat

An independent lifeboat in Hampshire is launching a fundraising appeal as it records it's busiest year to date.

Hamble Lifeboat has already responded to 77 call-outs so far up by 25 per cent on this time last year.

The charity wants to raise £8,000 pounds to install essential equipment to one of its lifeboats.

A spokesman for the charity said: "The Hamble Lifeboat ‘Ready To Launch’ Appeal 2021 is now live. The service is aiming to raise £8000 to purchase new chart plotters for the Harry Childs lifeboat prior to its relaunch back into service.

"The current in-service boat ‘John and Violet Hurrell’ is in need of its annual maintenance, so it is vital that the ‘Harry Childs’ is launched as soon as possible in order that they do not have to take time off service.

"The crew have completed a mammoth 3 year overhaul of the Harry Childs, using their own spare time and knowledge to keep the costs as low as possible, to bring it up to the latest Rescue Boat Code of Practice standards.

"The last piece of the jigsaw is to update the chart plotters to the latest touchscreen technology. These will cost £8,000 to replace but are vital to ensure the team can react quickly to coastguard taskings.

"The current plotters are old, and require multiple button pushes, which is not ideal when travelling at 35kts in a bumpy sea! We would like to replace them with the same as our other lifeboat, the ‘John and Violet Hurrell’. These are much more modern with state-of-the-art touch screen technology, allowing us to quickly input a search location or pattern when passed by the coastguard.

"They also allow us to overlay our radar image and AIS information, so we can easily see vessels names and identify our casualty vessels. These plotters will speed up our response times and ultimately, save lives."

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