Most of you will be aware that we use a what's app group to organise our onshore contacts in a convenient way.
I have recently noticed that we're all using the Naomhóga Chorcaí Traffic Report Group slightly differently, and I just want to get us all on the one page with this.
The purpose of this group is for the onshore contact to be able to effectively organise a rescue and to give clear and correct information to the emergency services if there are members overdue returning to land, and cannot be contacted. To this end I want to clear up a few issues that have arisen of late.
An example of a confusing trip / traffic report is the following:
"2x4h, 1x3h, 10 souls, SBC to city ETA 1800"
The difficulty here is, is there 11 people or 10 people out? Is there a typo? Essentially, as I said at the top, the purpose of this is to communicate correct information in the event of an incident. We want to co-ordinate the rescue of people, so we need to be clear. This situation can arise due to a typo, or because there's a 3 hander with 2 people in it. In this scenario I suggest the following:
"2x4h, 1x2h, 10 souls, SBC to the city ETA 1800",
of if you want to include even more information, then
"2x4h, 1x3h with just 2 people, 10 souls, SBC to the city. ETA 1800.
Another little issue to clear up is the use of abbreviations that maybe not everyone understands
SBC - Shandon Boat Club
ETA - Estimated Time of Arrival
2x4h - This means 2 4-hand naomhógs. It is assumed when this is written that all thwarts are occupied, and there's no passengers. If this is not the case it'll need to be further clarified. So 2x4h means 8 people in total, 4 in each of the 2 working 4 hand naomhógs.
PP - Paddys Point
Finally, if you're giving the thumbs up to a traffic report then it is understood that you understand the message and will be watching the time for the groups safe return. (with a few minutes grace for an inaccurate guess as to how fast they were going to row!) If the message is unclear, it is wise to clarify any element of doubt at the earliest opportunity.
I hope this helps clear up any confusion, and gets us all operating in the same manner and understanding each other.
Thank you for you attention to this detail, and let's hope we never need to use the emergency services, but let's be ready, just in case.
Colin
Basically the information required is the total number going out and how they are divided ie the ‘head count’ in each boat. It doesn’t matter what kind of boats they are in - the helicopter crew won’t be too concerned about that!
Thank you. This was helpful.
