RNLI flare practice night

It was a cold, dark evening in March when a group of intrepid divers from Totnes Sub Aqua Club went for a flare practice session.

These evenings are run by the RNLI based on the rationale that 'prevention is better than cure'. In other words they’d prefer to try and educate folks to prevent accidents rather than be called out to pick up the pieces when it's all gone horribly wrong!

The RNLI gets called out around 800 times per year and 1% of these callouts are initiated by someone spotting a flare going off. This may not seem like a huge percentage but it should be noted that as a result of our session Brixham Coastguard received so many phone calls from the public that their switchboard (of 36 incoming lines) was overloaded and calls were being diverted to Falmouth!

After a 10-15 minute briefing in the RNLI station at Brixham we donned coats, woolly hats and gloves and headed out along the breakwater.

First off we tried a couple of red smoke flares, followed by variety of red and white parachute flares. We all stood gazing skywards with bated breath as one of the red parachute flares was still burning on its way down and seemed to be heading for a house in Brixham. The next batch of flares were set off and pointed out to sea!

We also tried a variety of handheld flares both smoke and light flares as well as packs of 8 personal flares. Of the lessons we learned the most important for me was to appreciate exactly how much force was required to set some of the flares off.

The other main lessons were to always point the flares downwind and to hold them well away from yourself and the boat. They are extremely fierce and bright and will temporarily blind you if you look at them. In addition they can easily burn a hole through virtually anything, including the bottom of your boat! If you were in trouble before you’ve just doubled it as now your boat is sinking as well!

Should the fateful day ever arrive when I need to use flares for real I’m sure I’ll be grateful for the opportunity I had to practice in a safe, controlled environment.

If you ever get an opportunity to have a practice with some flares I‘d definitely recommend it to you all.

Watch a video clip Faster connection - (Media player) Slower connection - (Real)

Ruth Swarbrick - April 2004