Boat and safety training

Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog

With the deck crane resurrected we left Århus early this morning on the first leg of our tour to demand Marine Reserves to protect the North Sea. We already managed to have our first safety training and our first boat training sessions. I must say I really enjoyed both of them. The main part of the safety training consisted of everyone getting in a survival suit on the heli-deck, the suits (called 'lobsters' by the crew) are quite tricky to get yourself in to but once you do they will keep you warm and make you look really silly.

The boat training was both for honing the launching and retrieving skills of the crew and a familiarisation for all of us that might be in the boats during upcoming actions. The boats are first launched from the fixed cradles on the sides of the ship or with the deck crane with the driver and a crew member already in them. They then start up the boats, circles them around and come up to the side doors where they take on the passengers. The sea is quite clam and from the ship the waves look rather small, but once you get in to those inflatables – you get a completely different perspective and you will get wet. I hope we’ll have the chance to get in the boats again really soon.