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Summer 2014 realised fears about coastguard numbers in new service

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[Updated below on Belfast Coastguard situation] The rash concept of radical cost cutting to ‘modernise’ the United Kingdom coastguard service and its clumsy introduction has led to the devastation of the service.

Of course it needed to be operationally refined in the context of 21st century technology but technology can only do so much in the face of weather, rugged coastlines and events.

The original madcap plan was to leave Scotland with a single Maritime Rescue and Coordination Centre [MRCC] – at Aberdeen on the east coast, south east of Inverness; and without any Emergency Towing Vessels [ETV]. Two had been permanently stationed in the Western and Northern Isles.

The Scottish Government, with other matters on its mind, was initially asleep at the wheel on this one, seeing both Forth [Edinburgh] and Clyde [Glasgow] Coastguard stations close with little engaged obstruction. Then political pressure from the Western and Northern Isles brought government attention to the massive risks to human life and to the environment contained in this proposal.

The Minches, separating the Western Isles from the mainland; and the Pentland Firth, between the Orkney Isles and the Caithness coast in the far north are, in their individual ways, very challenging core sea routes in difficult weather and sea conditions.

And Shetland is in every way  even more ‘out there’ – at the full mercy of the  North Atlantic.

In sever storms – as in the wake of Hurricane Gonzalo, Aberdeen Coastguard might have found itself coordinating the rescue of multiple maritime incidents across these huge expanses of dangerous water and in addition to its usual duties.

IN the end some concessions were made, seeing Stornoway and Shetland coastguard stations reprieved and one ETV. under varying fiunancial arrangements, stationed in the  north.

This was needed in an emergency only days ago when a cargo ship, the Curacao -flagged MV Nicola, break down and was drifting in the Pentland Firth, with Gonzalo on the way across the Atlantic. The ETV Herakles, based in Kirkwall, went to her assistance and towed her into the heart of the sheltered Scapa Flow and anchored here there.

If there had been no ETV, what would the result of this incident have been?

Summer 2014

The impact of the scrambled introduction of the ‘modernised’ service and the controversy that has continuingly attended it, has led to the decimation of the service through far greater than anticipated resignations of experienced staff.

Recruiting has not been either easy or successful, leaving numbers across the service stretched beyond capability.

From analyses of the developing staffing patterns, the Coastguard SOS campaign, led by Dennis O’Connor, a retired officer from the Welsh service, had warned that the sumer of 2014 was likely to see  a crisis in undermanning at major MRCCs – and in a situation where the new national central control establishment at Fareham in Hampshire was as yet inoperative.

Figures recently released show that these warning s were well found – to the extent that had the summer not been unusually mild, the service would not have been able to respond adequately.

Aberdeen MRCC was the worst affected in the UK, in the context of a serious service-wide deficiency.

97% of Aberdeen’s shifts were staffed at unsafe levels in July and in September; followed by Dover where 91.9% of shifts fell below the required level in August.

Thames had 87.1% of its shifts staffed at below safe levels in August; and Solent station was understaffed by 83.3% in June.

These are all stations in charge of busy shipping area – and the original plan would have seen Aberdeen as Scotland’s only MRCC.

The service squeaked by in these staffing conditions by courtesy only of the good fortune of benign weather over the summer months.

The calibre of new staffing

There is now additional concern, with the Fareham National Maritime Operations Centre [NMOC] opening at last in September.

The huge loss of experienced staff has left the service dependent on new recruits and on inexperienced officers. It has been revealed that the staff at Fareham -  nowhere near capacity yet – has just under half of its staff with less than two years experience.

This creates a situation where experienced staff will  be spending much of their time during an incident in guiding and monitoring the inexperienced, reducing the focus of their expertise on the emergency incident in question.

This situation suggests that it is time for another investigation of the state of the service by the House of Commons Transport Select Committee.

The Belfast Coastguard situation

The situation at Belfast Coastguard – which is of direct concern to Argyll and the Isles and to much else of the west coast of Scotland, has been picked open by the award winning North Antrim Local Interest List website under Nevin Taggart.

The facts are are far from reassuring.

Read it here.


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