The Coast Guards. Part-One.

Multi-Role.

Nearly every nation has a rescue service of one kind or another, from being embedded within their police or military. Some are a separate division dedicated to its own provisions of equipment and personnel.

We have mountain rescue, coastguards, Royal Life boat institutions (R.N.L.I.) and many others. Each one plays a specific role on water, in the air and underground. Some fire service units are equipped in this way. There is close cooperation between all the emergency services, during storms, earthquakes, major incidents-accidents and terrorists attacks.

The sea borne operators in the U.S. double up with their vessels to assist narcotics enforcement, apart from search and rescue. This is becoming more so now across the globe with more navies having to deal with people smuggling and ship hijacking.

Christmas.

In light of a wet Christmas in the U.K

Perhaps everyone across the northern hemisphere has had some ammount of snow, the U.K. has seen very violent storms, winds rain with severe flooding. Instead of sleds, it has been the boats and inflatables to the rescue.

The inflatable, Zodiac and even the standard rowing boat continues to be part of the invaluable tools used for basic search and rescue across the globe, in all types of flood zones. Little and easy to inflate, they can work in tight spots. Speed is also an essential element to small craft used in this role along with depth levels changing suddenly.

I think we sometimes forget so easily about the very little machines that we use around us, that they do thr very simple jobs and roles. We also tend to forget how much, we could not do without them.