Establecimiento de la política.

Figure 3.3: Organization chart of station operations team prior to lifeboat launch

Each local station typically consists of two distinct groups, the operations team and the fundraising team. Recently, RNLI HQ have decreed that an integrated lifeboat management group (LMG) consisting of representatives from both teams be established in order to coordinate all RNLI activities in the locality.

The lifeboat operations manager (LOM) is the head of the operations team at station level, in charge of the day-to-day activities of the station and commands the boat and station when the boat is not at sea. Deputy launching authorities, mechanics, coxswains, crew and shorehelpers are also part of the operations team.

When the coastguard makes a request for an asset7, a launching authority (usually the LOM) is the individual who has the authority, on behalf of the RNLI, to decide whether or not the boat will go to sea. For this reason, the launching authority must try to remain objective and must never personally go out on a rescue (known also as a ‘service’, and more colloquially a ‘shout’). The coxswain must have express permission from the launching authority in order to launch the boat, which is to say that the coxswain has no authority to launch the boat until the launching authority authorizes him to do so and devolves his authority over the boat. The reason for these checks and balances is to avoid any recklessness which may arise from the hyped-up, adrenaline-pumped emotive atmosphere which ensues moments after an asset is requested.

The coxswain is the person who is in charge when the boat is at sea and is legally responsible for the boat and crew. Typically they will be a local navigational expert with many years experience, and must have completed specialized RNLI training. In the main, the coxswain’s position is voluntary however one station I interviewed in also had a paid coxswain. A paid coxswain is engaged as a last resort where sufficient voluntary cover cannot be arranged locally.

Each all-weather lifeboat station employs a full-time paid mechanic who is contracted to work forty hours a week and is requested by the RNLI to volunteer as required. The mechanic is tasked with the maintenance of the boat

7 _{As part of the overall Irish National Maritime SAR framework, the responsibility of}

coordination of sea rescue rests with the Irish Coastguard. The RNLI declares its assets as available to the coastguard and any request for a lifeboat launch ‘should always in the first instance be routed through a Coastguard Coordination Centre’ (Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport of Ireland, 2010: 37). In practical terms, this means that the Coastguard contacts the LOM/Launching authority to request a launch.

and station, liaising with the engineering and supply department for updates, parts and information, and training the second, third and emergency mechanics. The mechanic’s role has high implications for organizing as they are often the only full-time employed person at a station, and so gain an informal social standing by virtue of their regular presence. Here, a mechanic wittily explains his role:

Me: What do you see your role as being?

Respondent: (Laughing) Mother, father, Jesus do you really want to know?! Psychologist…it’s literally everything from man management, well first of all it has to be the boat, my first role is the upkeep and maintenance of the boat. That has to be, because they [the crew] hope that I have done the right job so when they do go out in any conditions, everything is going to work and they feel safe. (Pat, Mechanic)

Almost all volunteers start off in the RNLI as a crew member. Crew members are probationers for the first six months of their membership, when they are not supposed to go to sea in the lifeboat and instead have to demonstrate their commitment by attending to menial jobs such as cleaning the boat and station. Once they have proven their commitment, crew members are trained locally and at Poole. The typical ALB going on a shout will have six or seven crew, one coxswain and a mechanic. Crew are trained in sea survival techniques, first aid, fire-fighting and boat handling, and some, if they so choose, are trained in the more specialised subjects of navigation and radio communications.

On land the LOM is the overall manager, the coxswain and crew are dispersed, and the station must answer to HQ. I noticed that crew informally report to the coxswain (he is characterized as ‘the boss’), who feeds upwards to the LOM. All of the stations I interviewed in had multiple members of the same family involved (in one of the stations investigated there were six members of the same family, another had five) a matter which I shall discuss in detail in chapter five. Massive emphasis is placed on training for redundancy of function, with members being trained as second, third and emergency coxswains and mechanics. Each station must also designate a training co-ordinator who plans and organizes ongoing training and manages the training records on the SAP software system. In two of the four stations I interviewed in, the coxswain also held the training co-ordinator role, which signifies the importance of this role at station level.

The RNLI is a very distinctive organization as there is a switch of mode of organizational governance and control when the boat is launched (this is a key analytic marker in this study and will be discussed in great detail in chapter five). Once the water hits the boat8, the coxswain is in charge and the boat is autonomous from its local station and, crucially, RNLI HQ. The work on the water is completely different to the work on land (cf. Barley and Kunda, 2001), and the structures of power within the organization, formal and informal, change extensively when the lifeboat is launched. In accordance with maritime legislation, the coxswain is legally responsible for the boat and crew, which is

8 _{I recognize that this is an unusual figure of speech, but as most ALBs are housed in boathouses}

with slipways, when the order is given to ‘knock out’ the holding pin, the rule is ‘when the water hits the boat’ this signifies the handover of compete authority, legal and normative, to the coxswain.

quite astounding considering that he or she, more often than not, is a volunteer9. When a rescue is initiated and the boat launches there is a very definite devolution of decision-making power to the coxswain, who from that moment on is responsible for the safety and welfare of all on board. Members are socialized from original recruitment not to question the coxswain’s judgement. Offshore, the lifeboat is firewalled from RNLI management, hence a structural and cultural organizational change depending on whether the boat is at sea or not. The following response from a coxswain elucidates the meaning that is attached to the on/off the water distinction:

What we have done, because we wanted people to feel as free and as happy around the station as possible, so in the station as a coxswain I am nothing other than another member of the crew. I get the same banter and blaggarding10 as everyone else. Where we draw the line, firmly draw the line is when we go on board the boat. The very instant the coxswain goes on board the boat nobody questions him. His word is final. There is even no second glance to a coxswain on board. So we define the role so that people feel very comfortable at the station and in debates as regards training and everything else, but it doesn’t matter who is the coxswain, full-time coxswain, second coxswain or deputy second coxswain, we have it clearly defined that once that man steps

9 _{The RNLI provides insurance cover for coxswains and crew.}

10 _{Derivation of black guarding, meaning ‘a man who behaves in a dishonourable or}

contemptible way’ (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2012). Commonly abbreviated to ‘blaggard’ in Irish slang and used to infer joking, messing, horseplay.

aboard the boat, as long as he is coxswain or appointed coxswain he is in total charge and their word is the final command. (Seán, Coxswain)