'I can honestly say, this is the best office in Pembrokeshire' - watckeeper Jez Horton shares the story of Wool Tack Point
Forty years ago, Jez Horton encountered an image that has never left his mind. Two men were sheltering from the lashing rain beneath a rock near Marloes, armed with just two flares and a bottle of barley wine. Their mission was to look out for vessels that were in distress on the raging seas around St Brides Bay.
"They had no telephone and all they wanted was to protect the vessels out at sea," says Jez, who is a watchkeeper at the Wool Tack Point in Martins Haven.
"This image has never left my mind, and I suppose it was because of this that 12 months ago, when I was having one of those 'What am I going to do with my life?' kind of moments, I decided to find out more about the National Coastwatch Institution at Wool Tack Point. And everything else is history."
Speaking to Jez, it soon becomes clear that the work he and his Wool Tack Point team of volunteers are carrying out is invaluable.
"We're the eyes and ears of what's going on out there on the sea, because we're actually seeing things for real," he explains.
"We call it the hierarchy of vulnerability. The tankers I can see waiting to go to Milford Haven...we don't worry about them because they're big and ugly enough to look after themselves. We're more interested in vessels nearer to the surface of the sea, such as inflatables yachts, kayakers, paddleboarders and some commercial traffic like potters.
"Just last week we had a watchkeeper and a trainee on duty and they saw a guy waving at us from the cliff. My colleague went down to see what was going on, and out of sight was a kayaker who had capsized in Jack Sound and was distanced from his canoe. As a result my colleague was able to alert the coastguard and in the meantime the passenger ferry that was taking people to Skomer was able to cut through Jack Sound and collect his kayak.We were then able to locate on VHF radio the Dale Queen to exactly where the kayaker was.
"At the end of the day, our fundamental process is to save lives, either at sea or on the coast."
The Wook Tack Point coastguard station was closed in 1994 following a government decision to close all stations throughout the UK. Soon afterwards, two fishermen drowned off The Lizard peninsular in Cornwall after their vessel got into trouble.
"Sadly, the locals recognised that if there had been someone on duty up in the station, this would never have happened.
"They were so horrified that they decided to re-open the station as volunteers, and this became the first National Coastwatch Institution station to re-open."
Since then, more and more stations re-opened around the Welsh and English coasts including the Wool Tack which re-opened in 2009. It is currently run solely by seven volunteers who support the coastguards, the RNLI and many other search and rescue assets around the Pembrokeshire coast. It remains the smallest and possibly the most remote station in the UK.
"Our four key words are 'spot, plot, record and respond'," explains Jez.
" By spotting with permanent visual scanning of the seas for any small vessels, we plot how to take bearings and estimate distances of how far the vessels are from the station. We then convert that into latitude and longitude as this is the information that the coastguard and the lifeboats need to locate the exact whereabouts of the vessels. We also log every vessel that passes the tower, and this can be as many as a hundred a day.
"If a yacht is reported as being overdue, the coastguard and the lifeboat can then contact us and we can work out the exact course it was on and try to find it."
Every two hours the team compiles a weather report describing the sea state, the speed of wind and the temperature to help yachtsmen coming out of Milford Haven.
"Our station is Chanel 65, so we can tell any yachtsman or boat exactly what the weather is doing at that period in time," says Jez."
Wool Tack Point is currently open on Friday, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays between 10am to 6pm. and is on the verge of opening additionally on Tuesdays.
"Our ambition is to open seven days a week, but to do that we need more watchkeepers," said Jez. "We have some trainees in the pipeline but we're always on the look out for more people who can help us. The minimum we ask is 12 hours a month, which works out as around three half days.
"I can honestly say that this is probably the best office in Pembrokeshire and it's such a privilege to be involved here. I can see the puffins on Skomer through my binoculars, I can see dolphins and porpoises, I can see Ramsey Island and sometimes I can even see St Davids Head which is over ten miles away. One day I'm hoping to see a basking shark.
"I shall always be eternally grateful to those two men, all those years ago, who gave me the inspiration to get involved with the Wool Tack Point."
If anyone is interested in finding out more, they should visit the NCI Wool Tack point facebook page or its website which contains contact details.
To listen to Jez Horton's interview in full with Pure West Radio's news director, Sarahjane Absalom, they can listen to Wednesday's Afternoon Show with Helen Enser Morgan (September 11).
'I can honestly say, this is the best office in Pembrokeshire' - watckeeper Jez Horton shares the story of Wool Tack Point
Forty years ago, Jez Horton encountered an image that has never left his mind. Two men were sheltering from the lashing rain beneath a rock near Marloes, armed with just two flares and a bottle of barley wine. Their mission was to look out for vessels that were in distress on the raging seas around St Brides Bay.
"They had no telephone and all they wanted was to protect the vessels out at sea," says Jez, who is a watchkeeper at the Wool Tack Point in Martins Haven.
"This image has never left my mind, and I suppose it was because of this that 12 months ago, when I was having one of those 'What am I going to do with my life?' kind of moments, I decided to find out more about the National Coastwatch Institution at Wool Tack Point. And everything else is history."
Speaking to Jez, it soon becomes clear that the work he and his Wool Tack Point team of volunteers are carrying out is invaluable.
"We're the eyes and ears of what's going on out there on the sea, because we're actually seeing things for real," he explains.
"We call it the hierarchy of vulnerability. The tankers I can see waiting to go to Milford Haven...we don't worry about them because they're big and ugly enough to look after themselves. We're more interested in vessels nearer to the surface of the sea, such as inflatables yachts, kayakers, paddleboarders and some commercial traffic like potters.
"Just last week we had a watchkeeper and a trainee on duty and they saw a guy waving at us from the cliff. My colleague went down to see what was going on, and out of sight was a kayaker who had capsized in Jack Sound and was distanced from his canoe. As a result my colleague was able to alert the coastguard and in the meantime the passenger ferry that was taking people to Skomer was able to cut through Jack Sound and collect his kayak.We were then able to locate on VHF radio the Dale Queen to exactly where the kayaker was.
"At the end of the day, our fundamental process is to save lives, either at sea or on the coast."
The Wook Tack Point coastguard station was closed in 1994 following a government decision to close all stations throughout the UK. Soon afterwards, two fishermen drowned off The Lizard peninsular in Cornwall after their vessel got into trouble.
"Sadly, the locals recognised that if there had been someone on duty up in the station, this would never have happened.
"They were so horrified that they decided to re-open the station as volunteers, and this became the first National Coastwatch Institution station to re-open."
Since then, more and more stations re-opened around the Welsh and English coasts including the Wool Tack which re-opened in 2009. It is currently run solely by seven volunteers who support the coastguards, the RNLI and many other search and rescue assets around the Pembrokeshire coast. It remains the smallest and possibly the most remote station in the UK.
"Our four key words are 'spot, plot, record and respond'," explains Jez.
" By spotting with permanent visual scanning of the seas for any small vessels, we plot how to take bearings and estimate distances of how far the vessels are from the station. We then convert that into latitude and longitude as this is the information that the coastguard and the lifeboats need to locate the exact whereabouts of the vessels. We also log every vessel that passes the tower, and this can be as many as a hundred a day.
"If a yacht is reported as being overdue, the coastguard and the lifeboat can then contact us and we can work out the exact course it was on and try to find it."
Every two hours the team compiles a weather report describing the sea state, the speed of wind and the temperature to help yachtsmen coming out of Milford Haven.
"Our station is Chanel 65, so we can tell any yachtsman or boat exactly what the weather is doing at that period in time," says Jez."
Wool Tack Point is currently open on Friday, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays between 10am to 6pm. and is on the verge of opening additionally on Tuesdays.
"Our ambition is to open seven days a week, but to do that we need more watchkeepers," said Jez. "We have some trainees in the pipeline but we're always on the look out for more people who can help us. The minimum we ask is 12 hours a month, which works out as around three half days.
"I can honestly say that this is probably the best office in Pembrokeshire and it's such a privilege to be involved here. I can see the puffins on Skomer through my binoculars, I can see dolphins and porpoises, I can see Ramsey Island and sometimes I can even see St Davids Head which is over ten miles away. One day I'm hoping to see a basking shark.
"I shall always be eternally grateful to those two men, all those years ago, who gave me the inspiration to get involved with the Wool Tack Point."
If anyone is interested in finding out more, they should visit the NCI Wool Tack point facebook page or its website which contains contact details.
To listen to Jez Horton's interview in full with Pure West Radio's news director, Sarahjane Absalom, they can listen to Wednesday's Afternoon Show with Helen Enser Morgan (September 11).