Lifeboat Heroes DVD

Ben Fogle – seafarer, TV celebrity and passionate supporter of the RNLI – looks at what it takes to be a lifeboat hero: one of the brave men and women volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.Founded in 1874, its mostly unpaid volunteers have saved nearly 140,000 lives, sometimes at devastating personal cost. Ben gets hands-on with the lifeboat crews, visiting the Poole Lifeboat College to experience sea-survival and capsize training, and testing the new Man Overboard Guardian system in the chilly January waters off Torbay. He goes aboard the ‘William... Riley’, built in 1909, to find out what it was like to row the early lifeboats, then compares it with the speed and sophistication of new craft like the Atlantic 85 Inshore Lifeboat, and the groundbreaking Tamar Class all-weather lifeboat. Modern lifeboat heroes such as Mark Criddle, who won a Silver Medal for Gallantry in 2008, speak about what it means to be always waiting for the call. Ben also recounts the exploits of RNLI legends such as Henry Alexander Hamilton, Ireland’s most decorated lifesaver, and the incomparable Henry Blogg of Cromer, ‘the greatest lifeboatman of all time’. Then there’s the tragic tales of those who didn’t come back, including the ‘Mexico’ disaster of 1886, the worst night in RNLI history in which 27 lifeboatmen died, and the terrible loss of the Penlee lifeboat ‘Solomon Browne’ with all hands in 1981. What Ben discovers in the past and present of the RNLI is a long tradition of commitment, courage and sacrifice, which continues to define this unique British sea rescue service and charity. [show more]

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