10th June: Seawork 2025

Recent flood episode in Holland

I went along to the first day of the Seawork 2025 exhibition in order to attend a session on Flood Rescue and Climate Change.  It turned out to be mainly about the organisation of Flood rescue in the UK and Internationally with one talk featuring the Netherlands.  I couldn’t help but think that in years to come, after Pacific Island nations have long disappeared beneath the waves, there will come a time when much of Holland cannot be defended.  One thing that was mentioned as a future problem was mass migration, far beyond what we presently see with the Channel crossings.  I hate to think what the future world will be like.  At some point the human population will have to crash, probably through nuclear warfare.

I got the impression that there were fewer vessels on the water this year.  I was interested in the anti-drone and anti-RIB devices fitted to a demonstration Police Launch.  Skylift were docking a smaller barge than the Skylift 3000 I remember in previous years… but still very large all the same!

A boat I did go on and had a chat was Rebel Anchorman which is operated by Rebel Marine who operate out of the Isle of Wight.  We often hear her over the radio, for example accompanying cross Solent swims.  Apparently they do quite a lot of work for the military, like helping train fighter pilots in using their single person life-rafts if they come down in the sea.