Category Archives: Travel

RNLI Boathouse at Bembridge

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I have hinted in a previous post that some lifeboat posts were coming, and this is the first.  We visited Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight, as part of our trip.  Bembridge has had a lifeboat station since the 1800s.  For those not from the UK, the rescue at sea system in the UK might come as a bit of a surprise.  The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is a charity that provides rescue at sea.  It is not a government run program and is entirely based on charitable donations.  Hard for most visitors to understand but it runs very well.  Aside from the engineer that maintains the boat, all of the crews are volunteers.  They have other jobs and come to crew the boat when summoned.

We have had family in Bembridge for generations, so I have been going there all of my life.  For most of that time, the lifeboat was kept in a boathouse at the end of a pier at Lane End from where it would be launched down a slipway.  I shot a launch from the old boathouse many years ago and that appeared in this post I wrote a while after that.  That pier and boathouse had reached the end of its life so was demolished and a new pier built to accommodate the next generation of boat.  I had been to look at this boathouse as I wrote about here but had not been in the house and not seen a launch.

I looked on the website for the station when I woke up one morning during our stay and was surprised to discover that they were planning on launching not once, but twice that day.  The first launch was not that far off so I jumped out of bed and got ready to head down.

The boathouse was already open when I got there.  The crew explained that they were planning on switching boats out and that they were launching their boat to take it to Cowes where they would pick up a spare (or relief) boat and bring it back.  They would then do another launch that evening.  They were ready to go but a school party was coming to witness the launch, so they were waiting for them.  As soon as they arrived (late), everything was ready to go.

These are the shots from looking around the boathouse prior to the launch.  The launch itself will follow in another post!

Bristow’s Coastguard AW189

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While walking along the waterfront at East Cowes, I heard the noise of an approaching helicopter.  As it got closer, it turned out to be a Coastguard AW189.  I hoped it would come closer and it obliged by flying almost directly over us.  What I didn’t know was that another of the fleet would be at RIAT when I was there a few days later so I was going to get a closer look than this.  Stay tuned for that!

Romanian LanceRs

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RIAT proved to be a lot of fun with such a variety of types to see.  The shooting conditions were less than ideal but that shouldn’t take away from what was there and the effort that went in to organizing it all – I’m looking at you Tom if you are reading this.  Your team did a great job.  One of the stars of the show was actually a rather aged type.  Romania brought a pair of MiG-21 LanceR jets.  The last time I shot an active MiG-21 was at Rockford many years ago and that was privately owned.  These were very definitely active.

Their arrival on the Thursday certainly got everyone excited and the display itself was great.  The jet is from an era when the current levels of maneuverability had not been achieved but the jet can still put on quite a show.  The speed is something to behold, particularly on final approach when it fairly screams in to land.  I got to shoot it from a couple of locations including being at the departure end on the Sunday of the show and getting slightly closer to the jet as it taxied out.  I understand that they will disappear before too long to be replaced with something more generic – F-16s I think – so it was time to enjoy something old school for perhaps the last time.

Lots of Prop Vortices

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Departure day at RIAT was a bit overcast, much like the majority of the show.  The damp atmosphere did have the positive effect of meaning many of the more powerful prop aircraft were pulling vortices from the tips of their propellers.  This was most obvious earlier in their take off runs but you could get a  pretty good view of it even head on from where I was sitting in the FRIAT stand.  Here is one of the Hercs that was beating the air into submission.

Posts in the Water – Are They for the Carrier?

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I have made countless trips between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight over the course of my life.  Things change but most of the landmarks are remarkably consistent.  I was therefore quite surprised to see some very large posts that had appeared in the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour.  I knew that there had been dredging work undertaken to allow the new carriers (see this post) to enter the naval base.  I suspected that these new large posts might be connected with the same project.  Sure enough, some research after our returned confirmed that navigation lights have been installed to allow the carriers to navigate their way in.  These light are mounted on top of large posts sunk into the seabed.  They aren’t the most attractive things but I guess they do the job.

Concorde Formations Flypast

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RIAT is known for putting together formations of different types to celebrate certain events.  The fiftieth anniversary of the first flight of Concorde resulted in two display teams getting together.  Concorde was an Anglo-French collaboration and so was the celebration in this case.  The Red Arrows and the Patrouille de France both fly formations to represent Concorde so, for this joint effort, both teams got airborne and flew their two Concorde formations in line astern.  They made passes in each direction with the national anthems of each country playing – one on the first pass and the other on the second.  It was a simple demonstration but an impressive one all the same.

Red Kestrel

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The Red Funnel ferries have made appearances on the blog after previous UK trips including this one here.  While we were on the seafront at Cowes, we saw one of the ferries coming in but it looked pretty odd.  It actually looked a lot like the old style of ferries from my youngest days.  There was little upper superstructure and it looked like it was designed for trucks only.  The name was Red Kestrel so a quick google confirmed that this is exactly what it is.  By taking freight traffic, it leaves more space on the main ferries for the car traffic.  Apparently, it has space for about 12 passengers so I guess it is not well appointed!

South Coast Trains

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There are a few readers of the blog that like trains so this is a quick view of some UK passenger trains.  We stayed in Chichester for a while and were very close to the station.  We had to walk past it in to the town.  There were tons of trains running along this coast route so I saw several as we were finding out where things were.  Here are two of the trains.  They are both EMUs, one of which is relatively recent while the other is a pretty old vintage of train that I didn’t even realize operated in this part of the world.

HMS Queen Elizabeth

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One leg of our trip to the UK included a ferry to the Isle of Wight.  We took the ferry from Portsmouth and, as we drove in to town, I thought I could see the twin islands of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the pair of new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.  Sure enough, when we pulled out of Gunwharf on the ferry, we could see the carrier moored in the naval base.  A rear view doesn’t give to much impression of the ship but she is clearly pretty large.  At about 65,000 tons, she is over three times the displacement of the previous RN carriers.

Precursor to the Lifeboat Posts

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There are going to be some lifeboat posts coming up in the coming weeks.  We ended up seeing quite a bit of the RNLI’s work while we were there.  I shall have more detailed posts but these shots are just a warm up act for the posts to come.  I do like the RNLI and they certainly entertained me on this trip!