AREA NORTH EAST Area North East has two rescue coordination centres, MRCC Humber (located in Bridlington) and MRCC Great Yarmouth. The area extends from the English/Scottish border to Southwold on the Suffolk coast. Each area has an Area Operations Manager who is reponsible for the Rescue Centres and the Sectors. Each Rescue Centre is managed by a Rescue Coordination Centre Manager and supported by four Watch Managers. Each Watch Manager has a staff of five to six persons comprising watch officers and Coastguard Watch Assistants. Each shift is of 12 hours duration which enables 24 hour coverage, seven days a week and 365 days per year. Sector Managers operate from a specific geographical location are responsible primarily for managing the physical response to incidents on the Coast. This involves the training of the volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officer teams in the use of 4-wheel drive vehicles, searching for missing persons, mud and cliff rescue where appropriate. The Rescue Centres liaise and work closely with the other emergency services such as:
This close working is particularly important during major incidents but also encompasses involvement with local and major exercises and prevention initiatives. MRCC Humber’s area of responsibility provides search and rescue coverage from the English/Scottish border southwards to the Haile Sand Fort on the Lincolnshire/NE Lincolnshire county boundary. The area takes in the coastline of the following counties: Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, Durham, Cleveland, North Yorkshire, The East Riding of Yorkshire and NE Lincolnshire. The area also extends eastwards to the International Median Line in the middle of the North Sea which accounts for approximately 25,000 nautical square miles
Employment within the region is varied and at times seasonal, with tourism playing quite a major role especially through the summer months. Areas such as the North East are heavily industrialised, with Petro-chemical and Pharmaceutical Companies established on and around both the Tees and Humber estuaries. Shipbuilding and ship repair industries still abound on the River Tyne and to a lesser extent on the Humber. The ABP Ports situated on the River Humber and the River Tees are amongst the very busiest harbours in the United Kingdom with the Humber accounting for around 120 major ship movements daily. Fishing is still a major force with the main centres at North Shields, Whitby, Scarborough, Bridlington, Grimsby and Hull. As with many other coastal areas agriculture is widespread with cereal growing and livestock rearing featuring strongly. SECTOR ORGANISATION Humber is subdivided into five sectors:
The list below shows the location of the Sector Managers and the 29 Coast Rescue Teams in Humber's area of operation. Also established within the area are three Volunteer Life Brigades at Tynemouth, South Shields and Sunderland. These teams are volunteers who are trained and equipped to a similar level as the Coast Rescue Teams and as Declared Facilities are available for call out on a similar basis. Each team is trained to respond to the type of incident which generally occurs within each local area, however cross training is essential in order to enable different teams to work closely together on larger scale incidents Amble Sector Manager Tyne Sector Manager Whitby Sector Manager Scarborough Sector Manager Hull Sector Manager INCIDENT INFORMATION Humber MRCC is responsible for the co-ordination of Search and Rescue within the area described above. Due to its size and the amount of traffic, both of a commercial and recreational nature, the Rescue Centre expects to handle somewhere in the region of 1000 incidents annually. These incidents are both varied in type and complexity and include searches for lost and overdue vessels; persons lost overboard; evacuation of injured seafarers and sick passengers from both ferries and recreational craft; the evacuation of staff from offshore oil/gas related installations following collisions and other industry related problems. Evacuations are generally carried out by Rescue Helicopters from the Royal Air Force bases at Leconfield and Boulmer and Lifeboats of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, which are located strategically throughout the area. High on the list of requests for assistance are tows back to port because of machinery failure. This type of incident is still prevalent despite featuring widely in recent MCA safety campaigns. Due to the much varied topography coastal incidents occur in many differing forms including searches of missing persons, persons cut off by the tide, persons falling over cliffs, persons stuck attempting to climb cliffs, people stuck in mud, swimmers in difficulties, persons blown offshore on inflatable rafts and Medical evacuations.
MRCC Yarmouth's area of responsibility provides Search and Rescue coverage from Haile Sand Fort in Lincolnshire southwards to Southwold in Suffolk, taking in the Coastline of Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire. We also liaise with the Rescue Co-ordination Centres at Aarhus in Denmark, Bremen in Germany and Ijmuiden in Holland.Southwold in Suffolk, Yarmouth's area has a rich Maritime History, with Norfolk being the Birthplace of Horatio Nelson. The ports in this area were very prominent during World War II and the coastline now houses many wartime wrecks which are popular with divers. Nowadays it comprises of Commercial Ports and recreational harbours with Oil and Gas being the main industry. The fishing industry though still busy is now in decline and no longer a major part of the community. MAP Yarmouth covers the Southern North sea oil and Gas industry. The commercial Companies who operate offshore have considerable resources of ships, helicopters and equipment that can assist us during any incident. Many Military and Civil aircraft also operate in the Southern North Sea, and many of our Red Flare sightings originate from aircraft afterburners. The Civil Aircraft and helicopters Operate to and from the North Sea Gas Platforms and the Military aircraft use the North Sea Weapons Range for exercising. SECTOR ORGANISATION Great Yarmouth is subdivided into three Sectors:
The list below shows the location of the Sector Managers and the 17 Coastguard Rescue Teams in the Yarmouth area of operation. The Sector Manager is responsible for these teams, which range from between four and eleven personnel. Lincolnshire Sector Manager North Norfolk Sector Manager Yarmouth Sector Manager INCIDENT INFORMATION By far the majority of Incidents handled by Yarmouth MRCC occur during the Summer Holidays, these consist of: With most of the coastline facing eastwards and with the prevailing Southwesterly winds we have a great danger from airbeds and inflatable toys being blown out to sea. A considerable number of children also become parted from their parents on the vast number of beaches many of which are isolated. The Norfolk Broads is a popular boating area with recreational sailing and some commercial traffic. Many cruise boats require our help when inexperienced tourists ignore navigation marks and become stranded, or they become stuck on a rising tide under one of the many bridges. Other incidents involving small craft are caused by Stranding, Machinery Failure and adverse weather conditions. Every year thousands of holiday-makers enjoy the beautiful beaches and coastlines of Norfolk, Suffolk and Lincolnshire. Whilst this has brought about an increase in the tourist industry, it has also brought about an increase in the number of incidents, many of which could be avoided. In 2001 Yarmouth Coastguard worked over 600 incidents mainly involving Coastal users. RECENT INCIDENTS HANDLED Helicopter Rescue 125 from RAF Wattisham airlifted a lady suffering pregnacy problems from the Cruise Liner OCEAN MAJESTY, 60 miles North East of Great Yarmouth, to the James Paget Hospital in Gorleston for medical treatment. Lowestoft RNLI Lifeboat towed the Dutch Sailing Vessel BALTIC, with 9 persons on board, to safety after the vessel experienced sail and engine Problems 24 miles East South East of Lowestoft. Yarmouth received information of a diver with symptons of the bends some seven miles off Lowestoft. Lowestoft RNLI Lifeboat transferred the Casualty to a waiting ambulance for Treatment in a Decompression Chamber at the James Paget Hospital, Gorleston.
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