If you happened to be passing the King George V Dock in London’s Royal Docks during the morning of 8th December 2021 you might have wondered if there was some kind of Police incident or perhaps more movie filming taking place given the Police vehicles, boats and flashing blue lights.
In reality it was just some routine cross-agency training for open-water rescue – quite reminiscent of the famous image of Port of London Authority Police testing lifejackets in West India Dock back in the 1930s – always nice to find historical connections!
The exercise on this occasion was a joint operation between the UK Boarder Force who had deployed three of their Jet-Skis and the Met Police Marine Unit that had deployed a pair of their new Zodiac Milpro UK Inflatable Boats and a number of Police Officers were also present to undertake open-water rescue training using the various craft to practice personnel recovery techniques.
The Jet Skis were equipped with rescue sleds that were used to carry the rescuers and the casualties once recovered from the water.
Sometimes the deployment of the rescuers didn’t score highly in terms of execution but it was achieving the end result that mattered!
There is always time for a bit of plane spotting whilst you are training!!
As an interesting aside due to Port of London Authority regulations Jet Skis are not allowed to operate on the Thames in London and this seemingly includes the Police – from the training session today you could see the utility of Police Jet Skis on the Thames as they combine speed and access to confined spaces – perhaps something for the future?
A short video of some of the training activity.
Dock, Lock and River Blog (#dlr_blog) 