Servons at Sea

June 17, 2022

By Richard MacDonald (McGrath) ’82

It’s a tranquil Saturday morning and I get dressed slowly, open the curtains and gaze out across the wide sea estuary. It’s not a lazy gaze – those days are gone. I look for whitecaps indicating an offshore wind across the surface. Seaweed-strewn rocky outcrops jutting out like craggy fingers from the shore let me know the level of the tide. Then I glance at the fast-moving low-lying grey clouds to judge wind direction and speed. Lastly, I peer out towards May Island, six miles off the coast, to try and judge the break of the waves crashing against its battered shoreline. The lonely island marks the point where the Firth of Forth estuary becomes the North Sea, one of the world’s most turbulent seas, stretching from Scotland to Scandinavia.

And then my pager goes off, disturbing the morning quiet. I stand in mute disbelief for a split second, and then start running. My fourteen-year-old son already has the shrilling pager in his hands and the front door opens, “It says, Immediate Launch, dad!”

Pursing my lips, I ruffle his sandy-brown hair, shout, “Love you!” to my wife, son, and two sleeping teenage daughters, then sprint down the garden path, through the gate, and downhill towards the old stone harbor. Adrenaline kicks in as an automated siren begins wailing loudly from the lifeboat station. A few minutes later I’m on board a 14-ton, 38-foot, all-weather lifeboat with both 280-horsepower marine turbo-diesels reverberating at full throttle, the sea-spray hitting my face, heading out to a fishing boat in trouble. Welcome to life on a volunteer all-weather lifeboat crew.

The coastguards in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland have a fleet of helicopters, but they rely on unpaid volunteer lifeboat crews to provide search and rescue at sea, in all weathers, 24 hours a day, 364 days a year, out to 200 miles offshore. Beyond that, the Navy takes over. In common with other lifeboat services, we are run entirely as a charity. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) receives no government funding and is a separate entity from the coastguard (as a result, they cannot order us to launch, they politely request that we do). Our official role is simple and clearly understood – ‘We save lives at sea.’ The RNLI have saved over 142,700 lives at sea since its establishment in 1824.

The job has its rewards, especially when you return with casualties to the safety of the harbor. The job also has its risks. Just last year, three out of seven French lifeboat crew were lost when their lifeboat’s windows imploded, and it capsized when attempting to rescue a fishing boat. Its volunteer crew had launched into 75 mph storm force winds and 14-foot waves; the local major said that it was, “…incomprehensible that any boat went out on a day like today.” Just yesterday, we launched into 51 mph, 26°F, gale force winds, and that was bad enough. But if lives need to be rescued, the lifeboat always launches. Since its foundation, over 600 RNLI lifeboat crew have been lost, usually in storm-force conditions, as they try to rescue those in peril on the sea.

Modern self-righting lifeboats, personal equipment and constant training make our job as safe as it can be. Next year, our station will get the latest state-of-the-art Shannon-class lifeboat (each costing the charity $2.7m). Yet despite modernization, there’s always a wee element of fear, mixed with excitement and determination, as you run towards the lifeboat station and glance out at a stormy sea, wondering what the emergency is, and how long it will be until you come back home.

Richard J MacDonald (McGrath) ‘82 serves on his local RNLI all-weather lifeboat crew in the coastal fishing town of Anstruther, nine miles south of St Andrews, in Scotland. He’d be happy to show any alums visiting or studying in St Andrews around the lifeboat, and can be contacted at richard.macdonald@yahoo.co.uk.