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Old 12-22-2014, 10:09 PM   #1308
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Thanks, West, for the information. Interesting that they pattern themselves after the RNLI, an organization I know a fair amount about having friends serving with it. The CLI even uses the RNLI's paint scheme on their boats.

But..... there is one huge difference, and I think it's a significant one. While there is no age limit to being a member of the RNLI, there is an age limit to who can serve on the boats themselves. If I remember correctly, the cutoff age is either 45 or 50.

The reason was effectively illustrated in the writeup of the Steveston boat's grounding. There is mention of the difficulty of gettting some of the crew off because of their age and associated mobility problems.

While it's all politically correct and stuff to talk about age not being a limitation, the fact is it very much can be. The RNLI goes out in hideous weather at great risk to their own crews to save lives off the coasts of England, Scotland, and Wales. To be on a boat in heaving waves and high winds demands a certain (quite high) level of mobility, strength, coordination, and quick reflexes. Hence the maximum age limit to being on a boat crew in the RNLI.

The CLI obviously has no such limit as evidenced by the crew of the Steveston boat. While I don't believe in an age limit for individuals operating their own boats, I don't feel that way about people operating boats that are intended to act as lifesaving vessels in all weather and sea conditions. To have a lifesaving crew impaired by mobility issues-- which was apparently the case here--- trying to do a job which by its very nature demands a high level of physical strength, coordination, and dexterity is, in my opinion, a really bad idea. Not only are they putting themselves at risk, they are putting the people they're trying to assist at an even greater risk than they're experiencing already.

Frankly, I think the Canadian government should throw the book at these folks as a result of this accident, as well-intentioned as CLI members undoubtably are, and force them to do what the RNLI does: ensure that their boat crews are physically up to par. That doesn't mean their less physically fit members can't assist the CLI's endeavors with whatever skills they may have. Like the older RNLI memers, they just can't go out on the boats.

Otherwise it's just a matter of time before a CLI boat crew member, or worse, a boater they're trying to assist, is seriously injured or killed because a CLI crew member wasn't physicallly up to the job.

Age sucks, but there's no getting around the fact that it happens. I think the CLI needs to take a realistic view of what they're doing and change their practices..
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