NCI - The Beginning It seems like a good idea in this first post to describe how NCI itself started. To be brief, the first station opened in October 1994, but to set the scene you have to look back a few more years. Up to 1991, the Coastguard operated and maintained a comprehensive network of manned lookout stations round the coast of the UK. By the end of 1992 however, following a period of rationalisation and modernisation, most of these had closed. The seas round the UK can be capricious, dangerous, and take vessels and lives. In 1994 it took two more – two local fishermen who drowned near the recently-closed lookout at Bass Point. One can only imagine how feelings – sadness, anger, resentment perhaps - ran in the local communities. But the people there did something remarkable; instead of making protests they made history, trying to ensure that this sort of tragedy would not happen again. Following well-supported public meetings they obtained funding from generous don...
