Dedicated volunteers looking after the coast

Dedicated volunteers looking after the coast

24 April 2013

STRANGFORD and Carlingford are two of the great loughs of Northern Ireland

enclosing a coastline as rich and diverse as anywhere in Europe.

Mudflats, cliffs, ancient dunes, sweeping beaches and isolated, rock strewn shores are all to be found in an under-exploited coastline made by the combination of Lecale and Mourne.

It includes two of the Province’s fishing fleets in Kilkeel and Ardglass, the commercial port of Warrenpoint and small harbours of Strangford, Killough, Dundrum, Newcastle, Annalong and Rostrevor.

The shore and sea between the loughs are extremely popular with watersports enthusiasts and coastal walkers. Traditionally the seas were almost exclusively used by sailors and swimmers but a new breed of adventure seeker is now taking to the waves to try kite surfing, sea kayaking and cliff jumping.

But it is a dangerous environment. Strangford Lough is renowned for the severity of its tides, Dundrum Inner Bay and Carlingford Lough for its mudflats, the shore around Ardglass and Killough for some particularly treacherous rocks and Ballyhornan for its stunning but potentially dangerous cliff path.

Watching over the tens of thousands of people who take to the sea or enjoy the shore every year are the volunteers of the South Down Coastguard Rescue Team (SDCRT). A branch of the emergency services, the team is made up of men and women from their teens into their 60s who do their best to ensure the coastline is enjoyed safely but who turn out in all weathers and at any time to help those who get into difficulty.

The team’s main base is at Newcastle harbour and there is a second station at Kilkeel. It is led by Station Officer, Norman Bridges, from Kilkeel, and deputy Station Officer, Libby Campbell, from Dundrum.

Like Coastguard units across the UK and Ireland, the SDCRT is made up of dedicated people, many of whom have intimate knowledge and experience of the sea and the coastline. Bridges himself is a former trawler skipper while Campbell and her husband ran a shellfish company for many years. But also among the ranks of the SDCRT are a diver, a former merchant navy captain, several men who skipper or work on trawlers and dredgers, a former RNLI crew member and people who have lived beside the sea and have walked the shore for many years.

The team has a strong cross community ethos and prides itself on being broadly reflective of the South Down community with members coming from Ardglass, Dundrum, Castlewellan, Newcastle, Annalong and Kilkeel.

The team is essentially a search and rescue unit with members regularly having to turn out to search the shore for missing people. They work closely with the other emergency services, particularly the RNLI and the Irish Coastguard. When the RNLI launches lifeboats for a search close to shore there is generally a SDCRT presence on the coast and both work cheek by jowl in searches.

In Carlingford Lough there is a close working relationship with the Irish Coastguard unit at Greenore and when a helicopter is required to airlift a casualty to hospital it is almost always the Irish Coastguard’s huge red and white Sikorsky from Dublin.

The South Down team also works closely with the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team, the PSNI, Fire and Rescue Service and Ambulance Service.

One of the main planks of the SDCRT operation is cliff rescue. The area does not have cliffs of the scale found on the north coast but they rise to over 80 feet between Ballyhornan and Ardglass and the coastline south of Newcastle has some particularly nasty chasms.

Training for cliff rescue is intense and highly technical in which cliff technicians (techs), the specialists who go over the cliff to rescue casualties, work closely with the operations team at the top of the cliff, under the command of Bridges or Campbell.

When several members retired last year the team was briefly off-line to enable the training of four new techs — Philip Keenan, Danielle Newell, Edmund McCullough and Paul Symington. After intense training and two exhaustive assessments, the four passed joining the team’s other ‘cliff tech’ Andy Boyd. When Danielle Newell was passed she achieved a unique Coastguard record as the first woman in Northern Ireland to become a cliff tech.

The second assessment in January was carried out by two experienced full-time Coastguards and cliff rescue specialists from Scotland and involved a six hour test of every aspect of cliff rescue work. After their assessment both assessors said they would gladly have the SDCRT members on any of their teams in Scotland. High praise.

The SDCRT cliff rescue unit is now more highly trained than ever before. The team’s commitment and increased training has now been rewarded with the provision of additional equipment which will be based at Kilkeel and will improve significantly the capabilities of the unit.

One of the key requirements for team members is a detailed knowledge of the coast from Strangford Lough to Carlingford Lough. The majority is well away from roads and requires an understanding of access points, more usually used by local farmers, to allow SDCRT vehicles to get to the shore.

Team members are experienced in map and chart work, taking compass bearings and using new GPS technology for exact position fixes. They also have detailed training in communications and first aid.

The team is controlled by the Coastguard’s Maritime Rescue Centre (MRCC)in Bangor manned by full-time Coastguards around the clock. The MRCC has strategic control of all rescues deciding on the resources it needs to deploy, such as lifeboats, helicopters or shore team, and directing them where to search.

Once the SDCRT unit has been tasked it is controlled on the ground by Bridges and Campbell who are both experienced in co-ordinating search operations in south Down. The unit’s most recent search operation was on the shores of Carlingford Lough when a windsurfer was reported in difficulty off Ballyedmond. After a long search, co-ordinated by Bridges and involving the SDCRT and Irish Coastguard shore teams, Kilkeel RNLI and a helicopter, it was established the windsurfer had made it ashore and gone home — oblivious to the huge search operation.

In recent months the unit has been recruiting new members and six have so far joined the team augmenting the experience base within the unit. Among them are Eamon Rooney, who is a trawler skipper from Ardglass; Norman McBride was a crew member on Kilkeel lifeboat for 20 years; and Rodney Hanna is a bridge officer on a north sea support vessel. Other new recruits are Pamela Fitzpatrick, from Dundrum, Tara McBride, from Kilkeel, and Jutta McNaulty, from Newcastle.

Northern Ireland has a series of volunteer Coastguard units around the coast controlled by two full-time Sector Managers. The area south of Belfast is controlled by Rob Steventon.

He is proud of the achievements of SDCRT, particularly after the recent cliff assessments. “The commitment shown by the team, individually and collectively, has been magnificent. They worked extremely hard throughout the winter leading up to the assessments which were challenging and difficult but which they passed with flying colours,” he said.

“They put in the long hours and were rewarded with not only being restored to operations, but with some very glowing tributes from their assessors,” added Steventon.

“This is an extremely capable and well run Coastguard team whose members display total commitment and dedication to the principles of the Coastguard service.”

For Norman Bridges and Libby Campbell there is an enormous pride in the hard work and dedication of the team members which is largely unseen and unrecognised in the community.

“I am extremely proud of the team for their professionalism and their dedication to the ideals of the Coastguard service,” said Bridges.

“The nature of the job means the team members, like those in other emergency services, are continually training for all eventualities and this is carried out with enthusiasm and a willingness which is inspirational,” he added.

“They are often called upon to do some unpleasant tasks but they knuckle down and rely on their training and work through the situation with a spirit which never fails to amaze me.”

Campbell is also quick to praise the unit. “I am so proud of the team for the job they do. Not one of them does it to be praised or for tributes, they are just caring members of society.”