THE chair of the Jersey Lifeboat Association has said the charity is “building a good working relationship” with Ports of Jersey after regaining its search-and-rescue status.
Simon O’Donoghue stressed that the JLA had been “moving onto the front foot” since it returned to action last year and that it “wanted to get the drama behind us”.
The charity’s search-and-rescue activities were suspended in November 2021 after one of its lifeboats – Sir Max Aitken III – hit rocks near Noirmont Point while the crew was en route to help a French yacht.
Its suspension came under heavy criticism from former JLA chair Ben Shenton in November 2022, when he said he feared it could “needlessly cost a life, or lives”.
After engaging in a redeclaration process with Ports of Jersey, following an audit by Jersey Coastguard – observed by senior members of the UK’s national maritime emergency service – the JLA was reinstated as a declared search-and-rescue service in May.
Reflecting on the rest of this year, Mr O’Donoghue said that the charity was “building a good working relationship with Ports”.
He added: “We wanted to get the drama behind us and get on with saving lives.
“We did a lot of training and we have a lot of new crew members coming on board.
“We are moving onto the front foot now and bringing ourselves up to another level, so things are quite positive.”
Mr O’Donoghue’s comments were welcomed by Deputy Chief Minister Kirsten Morel, who said: “I am really pleased to hear what the chair of the JLA is saying about the working relationship with Ports of Jersey. It is fantastic that we have our own independent life-saving asset in addition to the RNLI and I thank both organisations for their efforts in protecting lives at sea.”
Coastguard duty officer Phil Le Neveu said: “From our side, all of the decisions made have always been to improve the service and make sure things are done safely. They [the JLA] are working well as an asset; they have been tasked to assist with various scenarios and I know they have been doing some good training exercises involving other vessels as well.”
