Shock Mitigation Directory

RNLI ALC Opened by Youngest Lifeboat Crew

18.08.2015

The honour of officially opening the RNLI’s new All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at the charity’s headquarters in Poole on Friday 21 August will fall on the shoulders of the two youngest fully qualified all-weather volunteer lifeboat crew in the Institution.

One of these is 20-year-old Caryl Jones, who lives in Morfa Nefyn, Gwynedd, and is a volunteer crew member with Porthdinllaen RNLI. Caryl, whose family has had close ties with Porthdinllaen RNLI for more than two decades, has been a crew member since she joined in 2012, aged 17. She recently completed the last of her training.

Her father Lewis has been an RNLI lifeboat crew member for 25 years, her grandfather and mother are involved in the local coastguard and her younger brother Cai, 18, is following in her footsteps and has joined the Porthdinllaen crew and is going through his training. Two of her cousins and an uncle are also on the Porthdinllaen RNLI lifeboat crew.

Caryl will be joined in opening the new facility by 18-year-old John McDermid, lifeboat volunteer crew member at Arranmore RNLI in Ireland. John McDermid has been a crew member with Arranmore RNLI since he turned seventeen in 2014 and recently received his leaving certificate.

John said: ‘I completed all my assessments with the lifeboat and I’m really looking forward to officially opening the new All-Weather Lifeboat Centre. I joined the crew of the Arranmore lifeboat as I wanted to keep up the family tradition of volunteering with the lifeboats. My grandfather was a Coxswain on the lifeboat and as soon as I was 17 I joined the crew.'

Both Caryl and John will ring a bell as the doors rise and the All-Weather Lifeboat Centre is declared officially open. The bell will then be rung every time a newly built RNLI all-weather lifeboat is launched for the first time.

RNLI Chief Executive Paul Boissier will address the gathering and Phil Coulter’s Lifeboat Anthem ‘Home from the Sea’ will be played to mark the occasion.

See Opening of RNLI All-weather Lifeboat Centre >

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