Did you know around 10 fishermen die at sea every year, mostly as a result of manoverboard incidents?
In a bid to cut this devastating statistic, the RNLI and Seafish teamed up with AIS Survivex to run specialist man overboard training for fishermen from across the UK.
Thirty-six fishermen travelled to AIS Survivex’s Dye facility last week to undertake three day-long training sessions in our survival pool. As well as allowing the seafarers to experience first-hand how challenging it is to survive falling overboard at sea, this experience aimed to get them thinking about how to prevent it happening on their vessels and what to do to improve their own chances of survival.
The session was an overwhelming success with attendees leaving exhausted, but with a much greater understanding of the dangers of falling overboard and how to reduce the risks.
Simon Potten from Seafish said:
“We are very grateful to AIS Survivex for allowing us to use these amazing facilities to deliver this important training.
“The survival pool at AIS Survivex is extremely realistic and enabled our participants to experience what it is like to fall overboard in adverse weather conditions. As well as underlining the importance of wearing PFD (personal flotation device), the session included man overboard recovery exercises to give the knowledge and confidence of what to do should the worst happen.
“We are hoping those who took part will now spread the word amongst their fellow fishermen about the dangers of falling overboard and the need to take action to mitigate the risk and improve chances of recovery. The team at AIS Survivex was extremely professional and very helpful in organising these sessions – thanks to them we were able to raise awareness of this deadly issue.”
