Freezing Atlantic

Pitkis · 10 January 2004, 14:09

Here are couple of pictures taken at my lifeboat station's season ending on late November 2002. We lifted our Atlantic 21 out of water - or ice - after the boat had went through a search mission previous night. The temperature was something like - 15 C then. Next day, when these photos are taken, the boat and water were so frozen that we decided to stop our season and winterize the boat. Anyway, you can easily imagine what it takes from the RIB to survive in extreme cases here in Finland....

Pitkis · 10 January 2004, 14:10

Pretty cold...

Pitkis · 10 January 2004, 14:11

Some ice on deck. The most of snow we had thrown away already.

Pitkis · 10 January 2004, 14:13

Here's the photo :-)

Petrov · 10 January 2004, 15:17

Looks really cold, i know how it is, always have the boat to long in the water, suddenly you wake up and it`s 10 degrees below.
You never learn of the misstake, ha ha.

gavin · 11 January 2004, 17:00

What can I say seriously cold nice to see Evinrudes up to the challenge

Pitkis · 11 January 2004, 17:46

Yes, they did work fine. Now the boat is equipped with 2x60 hp Mercury four-strokes as one of the Evinrudes signed off duty last August. We decided to replace both engines then. The new ones are great, pushing the boat to 34-35 kn with SS props and accelerate much faster than Evinrudes. I would have chosen new E-Tec Evinrudes if they were available, but we could not wait any longer and therefore went to Mercury. Next season will tell more experiences; we got the engines on early November, so I have just test driven them and that's it.

MeMe · 11 January 2004, 18:55

the blue light for ?

Have you ever had any problems with punctures through contact with sharp pointed ice ? Do you carry any emergency equipment for such an eventuality.

Bobaw · 11 January 2004, 20:01

Quote:

whats the blue light for ?

The same as the RNLI I presume????? (I thought it was a rescue craft - esp with the logo on the a frame.... might be wrong though) Nope I am right - it says so at the top of the thread....

bogib · 11 January 2004, 20:09

This is the Finnish "RNLI" which same as the Icelandic "RNLI" has got second hand Atlantic 21 after the RNLI came in with the Atlantic 75 at very reasonable price which have made at least many Icelandic SAR ("RNLI") teams possible to change from modified Humbers etc to the real well equipped inshore rescue boats (in Iceland each and every SAR team have to fund and run their operations themselves not like with RNLI each station get their equipment direct from Poole (and I.O.W.)

Bogi

Pitkis · 11 January 2004, 22:33

You already told correctly how things are around here...the Atlantic is owned by Finnish Lifeboat Society but operated by my lifeboat station. We have something like 14 or 15 A-21s in our organisation, all ex-RNLI boats. The one pictured here is former RNLI B-527, operated here since 1999.

What comes to sharp ice damages, we haven't encountered problems with that. We don't have any quick repair equipment onboard either. In heavy-duty RIBs tubes are multisectional, so if one deflates or gets punctured, other ones will cover the damaged one at least your way back to harbour or sometimes even the rest of the mission. In Atlantic I have had couple times deflated tube section (due material failure), but noted it only during post-op check at station. So puncture is not a problem at all.

Cold weather is problem sometimes, for example some plastic parts get broken while frozen, but no major difficulties have occured.