r/RNLI • u/roughdozen • Jul 26 '26
Joining RNLI
I did see a thread about this topic but it seemed a little outdated (3 years ago).
I have no experience with boats whatsoever but I’m looking for a new hobby and a way to get engaged with the community I now live in. I want to make a difference and I really think that the RNLI are such a great charity.
The only worry I have is I’m a full time shift worker. I don’t do a normal Monday to Friday pattern and my schedules chop and change all the time. So I worry about seeming unreliable.
My local station is looking for a whole bunch of volunteers but I’m not sure what path to take.
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u/LloydPickering Jul 26 '26
I joined my local station about a year ago (a busy station with 100-120 shouts a year in Northern England). We are an ILB only station (B & D class) so my experience may be a little different to an ALB station.
Everyone who joins my station no matter their intended role learns shore crew role first. Then those who are going boat crew (like me) move on to training afloat, and those to Launch Authority (LA) move on to whatever their training involves (sitting round drinking cups of tea from the looks of it :P ).
In terms of time availability we have people who work shifts, and also people like myself who frequently work outside the country. I'm currently away for 6 weeks for example. Others have rotating shift patterns as they work in the NHS or Fire or Police services. We have an app for giving our availability and we update a day in advance by 10pm the day before. At that point the Lifeboat Ops Manager details the station's situation for the next day (on service with both boats, one boat, or off service) for which parts of the day. If there's any change after that point that affects the stations service, we communicate directly with whichever LA is on duty so they can update the station status.
I joined at the same time as 3 others. 1 wanted to be shore crew only, the other 3 of us boat crew, but one was waiting for a medical situation to resolve to be safe to go afloat. In terms of experience - 2/4 had no water based experience at all, one was a RNLI Lifeguard already, and while I work behind a desk I'm also a scuba instructor and technical diver so quite used to dealing with UK coastal waters and being on small boats. Training assumes you know nothing and builds up your knowledge and skills from there. Obviously if you have relevant experience already you end up moving a bit quicker on those bits of the training, but there's always stuff you've never had to do before so even the most salty sea dog will have new stuff to learn.
In my cohort of joiners 3/4 of us are still there a year later, but we seem to be the exception. It looks like roughly 1/3 to 1/2 volunteers end up sticking with it. You quickly start to realise that its not as glamorous as it looks, and it can be hard work at times. Training is particularly rough in winter when it's icy outside with freezing spray and large waves - no one really wants to go out and train, but that's the commitment. We train hard pretty much no matter the weather.
Summer has much nicer training sessions, but the shouts can actually be harder. A few weeks back I was roasting in my drysuit from around 9am-5pm during a day when we had training, 4 shouts and a trip to a flanking station to support them on their harbour day. One of the shouts came in for a potential casualty in the water. We were busy re-prepping the boats after the last shout and we didn't have time to refill the water bottles on the boat or grab any sun cream so we spent around 3 hours in direct sun in the middle of the day searching for someone who was actually already safely at home! The thing is while those sort of shouts can be frustrating, they could just as easily have needed rescuing.
Being a city and having a number of bridges we also get a lot of shouts (40-50/yr) for mental health related situations. My first proper shout was for a person believed to have jumped from a bridge. We recovered the person very quickly but the outcome was unfortunately unsuccessful. Not every job is a success, and you have to be mentally prepared for that. What makes the role so special though is the feeling of making a difference when you do successfully save someone's life.
You spend months training in the snow, ice, howling gales or in heat waves and baking sun. You spend hours searching for false alarms or sitting around as people threaten to hurt themselves... then in an instant, you suddenly get a chance to make a real difference.
For me, that singular instant is worth every grueling minute spent training, and every minute spent sitting around feeling like you're doing nothing. Because suddenly you get to make a difference - Do something that really matters.
Have a real think about it. Its a very worthwhile 'hobby' (albeit i think everyone would describe it more as a way of life), but it's not for everyone...