From 2014/5 the RNLI will start building the new Shannon class at the main RNLI HQ in Poole – a stones throw from our classrooms and a site that every course on the water passes repeatedly when they are afloat. The need to redevelop the site to accommodate the manufacture of the Shannon coupled to the desire to upgrade the facilities has meant that the RNLI needed a temporary home for the Refit and Maintenance department. We are really please they chose Cobb’s Quay so every day we have lifeboats being recovered up the slipway, worked on in the yard and a good number of pontoons and hard standing is being used by the RNLI to store all weather lifeboats. Indeed yesterday we counted 11 in the water and 4 on the hard!!
The RNLI will be at Cobbs Quay for about 18 months so it presents a great opportunity to come and see lifeboats out of the water at up close. The downside? Trying to focus a Level 2 group on a classroom session when outside the window a Tamar is being recovered from the water! Impressive!