Training

To maintain readiness in all aspects of search-and-rescue work, the Nith Inshore Rescue crew train every two weeks, the training sessions coinciding with high tides at Glencaple. As well as being proficient in rescue techniques and navigation, all crew members have to hold restricted VHF radio certificates and all are first-aid trained.

Sometimes we train in conjunction with other organisations such as Dumfries & Galloway Fire and Rescue Service.

At regular intervals throughout the year we carry out joint exercises with coastguard units from Annan, Kirkcudbright and Portling, lifeboats from Silloth, Kippford and Kirkcudbright (plus the Workington off-shore boat) and a Royal Navy Sea King Helicopter from HMS Gannet Search and Rescue Flight based at Prestwick. One or two large-scale exercises involving the above units plus police, fire, ambulance and the voluntary sector are carried out each year, the prohibitive cost preventing them being conducted more frequently. These are usually medical evacuation exercises, a recent scenario featuring a plane with engine failure ditching in the Solway, resulting in multiple casualties.

Photo: a member of the Nith crew is winched up into the Search-and-Rescue helicopter during an exercise in Balcary Bay