Sharing some photos taken by Bob Kerr who assists Lerwick Lifeboat Station with their social media listings and news. We were invited to assist Lerwick Lifeboat with a towing exercise on the evening of Thursday 14th April and it was our pleasure as always. This training exercise provided valuable experience for all crew, allowing them to practice important skills such as safely attaching tow lines, taking a boat under tow and manoeuvring a boat without power alongside a safe berth in the harbour .
Come July it will be two years since Lerwick lifeboat crew members celebrated the 90th anniversary of the station’s first lifeboat ‘The Lady Jane & Martha Ryland’. The 51ft ‘Barnett-class’ lifeboat was named by the Duchess of Montrose in June 1932 as a crowd of over 2,000 people looked on. With two 60-horsepower petrol engines, and a top-speed of just under nine knots, the Barnett-class was the most powerful RNLI lifeboat in production at the time.
The above named lifeboat was then replaced with another Barnett-class lifeboat (Mk II) – ‘The Claude Cecil Staniforth’, which arrived in Lerwick in 1958 and remained in service for 20 years until 1978. This was then replaced with Arun-class lifeboat ‘Soldian’ which serviced from 1978 until 1997, when the current Severn-class ‘Michael and Jane Vernon’ took up service.
The current 17-metre (56 feet) all-weather lifeboat is the largest and most powerful in the RNLI’s fleet, with two “MTU” engines that produce up to 1600 horsepower, a top speed of 25 knots and a range of 250 nautical miles.
Over the years, the many coxwain’s and volunteer crews of Lerwick Lifeboat have been decorated for several extraordinary rescue operations, they have won many awards for their outstanding bravery, saving over 800 lives. Their service has been recognised with 62 RNLI Gallantry Awards.
The RNLI is a charitable organisation and with water all around our islands, they need all the support they can get. The Lerwick Lifeboat Station has a shop which can be accessed via Commercial Street. You can pick up the perfect gift or souvenir, they have homewares, clothing, tasty treats, toys, greeting cards and much much more. The shop is run by volunteers, and all profits help save lives at sea.
#RNLI #savinglivesatsea #respectthewater #lerwicklifeboat
As the No.1 wildlife boat tour to Noss, we are thrilled to have received accreditation to The WiSe Scheme – the UK’s national training scheme for minimizing disturbance to marine wildlife.
As WiSe members we commit to abide by not only national and local laws on wildlife conservation and disturbance avoidance, but also the WiSe Codes of Conduct.
A few examples of our responsibilities, include slowing down to a speed of 6 knots or less when approaching cetaceans a kilometre away, limiting our encounter time with cetaceans to a maximum of 15 minutes and approaching cetaceans in a pre-determined and responsible manner.
WiSe is not an award as such – it involves attending an online course during March and over a couple of evenings to gain accreditation. We thoroughly enjoyed it, wholeheartedly recommend it and urge all other marine wildlife tour operators to do the same – more information at www.wisescheme.org
Celebrate Scotland’s Year of Stories & Seabirds-and-Seals 30th Birthday Celebrations by entering our short story COMPETITION!
The competition is open to both adults and children (15 years and under) who have visited and explored Noss National Nature Reserve – on foot or by boat.
We invite you to write a short story about your adventure and potentially WIN some amazing prizes…See further below.
Please send your story (max 2,000 words) along with any pictures you wish to share, via email to: info@seabirds-and-seals.com before 24th April 2022.
Good Luck!
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Winning Stories By Adults
1st Prize:
Seabirds-and-Seals Noss Boat Gift Voucher For 2.
(This could be for 2 adults or 1 adult & 1 under 16 – winner chooses.
2nd Prize:
£50 Fjara Cafe Bar Gift Voucher – Kindly donated by Fjarå Cafe Bar
3rd Prize:
Signed Copy of ‘Seabirds and Seals’ written by founder of the business – Dr Jonathan Wills.
Winning Stories By Children (Aged 15rs and under)
Age 5-7:
Free Trip Aboard Seabirds-and-Seals Noss Boat With Accompanying Adult
Age 8-11:
Free Trip Aboard Seabirds-and-Seals Noss Boat With Accompanying Adult
Age 12-15:
Free Trip Aboard Seabirds-and-Seals Noss Boat With Accompanying Adult
Seabirds and Seals believe that EVERYONE should have the opportunity to experience the joy of wildlife in their daily lives – but we know that not everyone has equal access to nature. For that reason, we have made travel on our boat ‘Seabird’ as accessible and inclusive as we possibly can – from design stage to the moment you come aboard. ‘Seabird’ is the only Noss tour boat that is wheelchair-accessible and to ensure opportunities remain as equal for visitors as they do for locals, we have teamed up with the amazing local charity Ability Shetland who said:
“Ability Shetland are delighted to be working together with Seabirds and Seals to ensure less able people have access to their award-winning boat trips around Bressay and Noss.
We are supporting the company by providing wheelchairs to ensure passengers that require them, can get aboard safely and be comfortable during their trip.
We are so pleased that Seabirds and Seals approached us to see where we could help to ensure that less able people are included in all activities, including those available to visitors to our islands – and also people within our own community too”.
Our guests are the most important aspect of our business and we want to ensure differences are valued and that everyone can be themselves and flourish. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions you might have.
HIP-HIP-HOORAY… THE AWARDS KEEP COMING!!!
WE HAVE BEEN VOTED: SCOTLAND’S BEST WILDLIFE BOAT TOUR COMPANY!!!
It has been an incredibly busy few months for us, with holidays and preparing for a busy season ahead, but now time to announce our great news. The judging panel at SME Scottish Enterprise Awards, got in touch to inform us that we have been awarded winners of ‘Scotland’s Best Wildlife Boat Tour Compay’ as shown clearly in our winning logo. We are both proud to be keeping up the many awards Seabirds-and-Seals has historically received.
Thank you to all our customers and business associates for making us well and truly the Number One boat tour to Noss as ranked on TripAdvisor. Seabirds and Seals goes from strength to strength having been founded nearly 30 years ago back in 1992. The support we have received since we took over the business back in 2017 has been incredible and we cannot wait to get back out on our Catamaran ‘Seabird’ to share our love of Noss with you – oh and there’s a 30th birthday party to enjoy too.
Given the incredible calibre of wildlife boat tour (and indeed land-based!) operators the length and breadth of Scotland, accepting this award is incredibly humbling for us. We would like to pay testament to how well the adventure and wildlife tourism sector across Scotland has coped with the pandemic, and how it has brought so many businesses together, to help each other. and share their common goals for the benefit of customers.
From the bottom of our hearts, thanks everyone!
Marie & Brian
Winter in Shetland is not for the faint hearted but as a wildlife tour operator who keeps their boat ‘in the water’ we absolutely love it and embrace everything the days from November to February throw at us!
Whilst we offer no public sailings to Noss we are always available for charter and we are proud to provide the boat infrastructure for conducting winter ornithological and seabird surveys for Aberdeen University’s SOTEAG (Shetland Oil Terminal Environmental Group) and the boat for Atlantic Grey Seal surveys for the Scottish Government conservation agency NatureScot.
At 60 degrees north our days are admittedly short, but they are action-packed and live long in the memory. The winter of 2021/22 has proved to be one of the best with Orcas, King Eiders, a White-billed Diver and scores of baby seals being the stand out moments for our skipper and crew.
Our Catamaran Seabird is now ‘out the water’ for maintenance as we prepare for an exciting 2022 Noss Boat Tour Season. We cannot wait to get back out there and share with you – our great passion for wildlife, geology, folklore, history and so much more.
Enjoy our mix of photos and keep a look out for more Noss Boat News coming soon!
Tuesday night with a difference a couple of weeks ago, but one we were proud to be part of. We were approached early October by Lerwick Lifeboat’s Coxwain to see if we would be willing to assist them with a night-time exercise and of course we were happy to assist. The exercise involved us going out the North exit of the harbour, then East to the Gunnista Holm to allow the Lifeboat to attach a tow line and take us safely back in alongside Mair’s Pier in Lerwick harbour. The lifeboat certainly does an outstanding service for everybody and good to see them out training. It’s exercises like this that helps to develop the crews skills and only too happy to assist with any required exercises with such fine friendly crew. They all do us very proud with their outstanding bravery .
The Lerwick branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has provided four lifeboats over the last 90 years. The first one arrived in July 1930 and was called the Lady Jane and Martha Ryland and now we have the beautiful Michael and Jane Vernon 17-10. The current lifeboat is a 1997 severn-class-all-weather vessel (56 feet) and the most powerful in the RNLI’s fleet, with two “MTU’ engines that produce up to 1600 horsepower, a top speed of 25 knots and a range of 250 nautical miles.
The costs for all 4 lifeboats have been entirely met by donations. The team are grateful to all those in Shetland & elsewhere who have helped funding.
The work the RNLI does is incredible and over the years the coxswain and crew have been decorated for several extraordinary rescue operations, they certainly do us very proud and over the years they have received many well deserved awards for their outstanding bravery. Their service has been recognized with 62 RNLI Gallantry Awards. The most recent being the RNLI gold medal award to Coxswain/Mechanic Hewitt Clark, for the incredible rescue operation that took place off Bressay in November 1997. That day they had to battle through storm force winds and enormous waves to save lives from a ship called the Green Lily – date never to be forgotten here in Shetland.
Last photo taken by Dennis Coutts – a well-known local photographer, which shows you Lerwick’s first lifeboat mentioned in our story above and I am sure you will all agree that our crew members definitely deserve a big shout of many many thanks for all the amazing work they do.
If you’re visiting Shetland, be sure to give @rnlilerwick1710 a donation when passing their HQ in the waterfront’s Tollbooth building, which also has a lovely gift shop. You will also find charity boxes in local shops and we have one onboard Seabird. If you can’t wait, you can donate online via RNLI.org – thank you!
We were delighted to be part of the recent Taste of Shetland Festival 2021 festival. We were approached by Shetland Tourism Association asking if we would be willing to appear in their short video which was showcased on a big screen for all festival attendees and for those at home to watch. We of course happily accepted and loved attending in person on the day.
It was a great festival celebrating Shetland food & drink, but also everything else amazing that Shetland has to offer.
There is just so much to see and do in Shetland, this lovely short video gives you some very fine suggestions, including our Seabirds-and-Seals Noss Boat Tours.
Enjoy this short video which is copyright of ‘Shetland Tourism Assoicaiton’ – with permission to share further afield.