Royal reception marks 30 years for National Coastwatch

The 30th anniversary party for the National Coastwatch Institution (NCI) was held at Trinity House in central London, with representatives from HM Coastguard, the RNLI, various other bodies and of course Seawork and Maritime Journal.

“I do find it extraordinary how far this organisation has come in 30 years,” said the Princess Royal in her speech. “The pleasure I have visiting the stations – for which you don’t really need a fitness test – you either get there or you don’t. Parking can be quite a long way from the stations.

“I do think not only have our partners understood the value of NCI, but the individuals who have volunteered to the NCI and made themselves available, they understand and respect each other and what they can bring to that particular issue, which can be a very frightening one for some.

“When you think about how quickly it has developed in 30 years and the quality of volunteers, I’m really confident that it will develop in the same way in the future. It’s well worth celebrating and thanking those volunteers that step up to the plate, and those that fund it.”

NCI Regional Trustee for Cornwall Helen Simpson supports 13 stations along the English southwest coast. She has worked with the charity for 18 years.

“Our patron, the Princess Royal, visits about six stations a year, and I can’t praise her enough,” she said. “Our role is to be the eyes and ears along the coast – watching for anything we believe is suspicious, or at risk, and reporting our findings to the appropriate body, whether it’s the coastguard, the RNLI, or the police.

”Invariably we’re high up, so we can see better than the lifeboat station can see, so we can tell them where the casualty is and how far they are from it and so on.” 

Each station has to raise its own funds locally and equip it so they can be manned throughout all daylight hours, and every single one of the 2,600-strong workforce is a volunteer. To mark the 30th year, a flag was sent around to each station, to arrive back at Trinity House in time for the celebration.

“The greatest thing is when you get a gut instinct, for instance you see two people on a paddle board who don’t realise they’re drifting out and will struggle,” said Helen Simpson. “It’s at that point you make a decision to inform the coastguard, who will decide whether to act or to ask us to keep observations on that person.”

Neal Gibson is the Commander of the Maritime Coordination Rescue Centre at Dover with HM Coastguard.

“The NCI provides us with good intel – weather information, visuals, they log a lot of information on vessels transiting the coast, so in cases where we’re looking for a vessel they can help us narrow down our search point, and so on,” he said.

“They certainly contribute to our search and rescue operations and have been a valuable tool. It’s a lot to do with weather, small boat challenges – in summer periods we have a lot of busy beaches, effectively eight or nine miles of beaches, as well as general maritime shipping. The Dover strait is the busiest shipping lane in the world so we obviously have instances of commercial vessels breaking down or persons overboard.”

Barrie Martin is the Commodore of the Little Ship Club, an international sailing training club that operates all over the world.

“NCI means a lot because one of our objectives is to get people out on the water, and if things go wrong we rely a lot on the RNLI and the NCI,” he said. “There are lots of incidents where the NCI has been able to speedily assist in the recovery of people in danger.”

“Entertaining our supporters and sponsors at last night’s 30th Anniversary event at Trinity House was both a joy and privilege,” said trustee Ian Whalley MBE.

“The speech made by HRH The Princess Royal, NCI’s Royal Patron, was inspired and entertaining, and everyone left the event with better understanding of what and how we do our work.

“As a board member and Trustee, I am hugely grateful to all our guests for their continued and generous support.”