NCI Gosport and The Big Red Button
We have to begin by admitting to a bit of artistic license here… there is no big red button (BRB) that we press to raise the alarm when we see people or vessels in distress; mostly we use VHF channel 16 instead. But for every occasion when we do raise the alarm (and there has been some recently which were very well publicised), there must be a dozen or more occasions where we see something that has our hands metaphorically hovering over that big red button, only for the situation to resolve itself. For example….
There were these youngsters jumping into the water from the top of the round tower. Anyone in their right mind will agree that this is not a clever thing to do. Apart from all the other dangers, the jumper has to run fast enough to ensure that he (and it’s almost always a he) clears the 2-metre wide concrete apron that encircles the base of the tower. A few of the group did this with no evident trouble, exiting the water by climbing over the rocks on the harbour-side of the tower (as opposed to exiting via the Hot Walls beach). And then there was this one lad… 
We didn’t see him jump or watch his progress into the water, our eyes were elsewhere for a short while. However, we did notice that all this friends at the top of the tower were looking down at him with what appeared to be some anxiety and that he did seem to be very slow to try getting out of the water. Being in a safety organisation one tends to become a pessimist, so we are immediately wondering if he has injured himself somehow, maybe hitting the tower on the way down or not clearing that concrete apron. Is he going to need help ? Our hands strayed over that metaphorical BRB. Was this going to end badly ?
In the end, he did get out OK and get to his feet, maybe rather slowly, maybe with one arm cradling the other. We later believe that he reappeared at the top of the tower to retrieve clothing, following which the whole group dispersed. A fright and a close shave for those jumpers perhaps, maybe a minor injury, but it turned out that they didn’t need us to do anything.
One day a small cuddy boat (not the one in the picture !) was plodding southwards down the very centre of the harbour, one person on board. The centre is not where boats of this size should be, but this event was compounded by the fact that he was completely oblivious to presence of the 100m long freighter behind him, evidently also desiring of exiting the harbour. He also was deaf to the radio calls that QHM (now KHM) were making to him, and to the hooting from the freighter. The freighter was compelled to slow down.
When they were passing through the harbour entrance the freighter had to move to the right to avoid colliding with this small boat, an exercise made more exciting by the presence of a ferry which was coming in and likewise had to slow down and move aside. As the cuddy boat disappeared from view to become the filling of a maritime sandwich, our hands again strayed to hover over the BRB, expecting when we regained sight of it that the boat would have been converted into matchwood and crushed fibreglass. Happily it didn’t happen; the two large vessels were able to edge round him safely and the small boat just carried on oblivious. Nearly, so nearly, a tragedy.
As a small digression, it might be a good idea to revise the Sound Signals and their meanings (these are also known as Whistle Blasts, which may align more closely to the unprintable language probably used by the skippers of the two larger vessels).
Finally, the case of two men in a speedboat. They exited the harbour, but didn’t want to go far. No problem with that. But they cut their engine and stopped on the inner swashway, just a few yards away from the Fort Blockhouse sea wall. That can be a busy area sometimes, but just then it was quiet, so nothing to worry about there. Until one of the men decided he wanted a swim. This caught our attention - swimming in the inner swash is decidedly not a good idea.
What really caught our attention is when the second man jumped in for a swim as well. Leaving no-one on the boat. Without having put an anchor down first. In the inner swash. Two main scenarios placed themselves in our minds… do they have a boarding ladder so they can get back on the boat, and where will the boat drift to. Our hands hovered over that BRB.
Happily they did have a ladder, got back on board after a short time, and the boat did not drift far. Lucky. Just to test their luck again they did the same thing all over again in the Small Boat Channel not far from BC Outer….. again both took a swim, again letting the boat free to drift, and again we nearly hit the BRB. Their luck held; after a short time they got back in the boat and, much to our relief and peace of mind, entered the harbour and disappeared in to one of the marinas on the Gosport side.
We can perhaps laugh at some of these events now, but all joking aside these are all situations that could have become very serious if not fatal in an eyeblink, so us NCI Watchkeepers take our job of raising the alarm very seriously. We can only do this with your help and generosity. If every person who reads this article would donate just £2, we will be able to keep our lookout station operating for at least the next twelve months, and maybe replace some of our aging equipment. A donation of £5 will in addition help open up new stations to fill gaps around the coast. 
Please, please visit our donation page here https://www.nci.org.uk/stations/donations so we can be there to press the big red button for you when your minor problem turns serious.
