The RNLI Sea Safety Scheme, known as SEA Check, is a less formal safety advice visit than you might expect. It’s FREE and is NOT a test! It’s a friendly visit from an RNLI Sea Safety Advisor to talk you through the various items of safety equipment recommended for your type of boat and the use to which it is put.


The visit may be to your home, slipway, boatyard or marina pontoon. No matter how long you have been sailing there may be something we can suggest that will increase your safety and enjoyment. We may even save you money by suggesting alternatives you have not considered.


No matter what you use on the water, be it sail, power, kayak or jetski, we have volunteers experienced in the safety related matters applicable to you.
Under the water? We have divers too! A safety talk to your dive club may help maintain interest during a cold and miserable winter!

In fact, we wish to take every possible opportunity to educate and inform the boating public on safety related matters. To this end we not only visit clubs with demonstrations and talks, but offer a Lifejacket Clinic to show you how to check your lifejacket and avoid the kinds of problems we see that would cause 25% of them to fail. From rusted or loose CO2 bottles to damaged bladders and poorly fitted straps, we have seen them all.


We also see brand new lifejackets that would not work! A kindly chandler, having run out of rearming kits, may help a customer by letting him have a CO2 bottle from a ‘stock’ lifejacket. Then, in error, the ‘stock’ lifejacket gets sold without itself being rearmed. The result is a useless lifejacket being worn by a person who, knowing it to be new, has not checked it. Lifejackets should be professionally serviced but even then it is important to ensure the lifejacket is properly maintained, correctly fitted and so on.
It’s YOUR life!! We can show you the things to look for.

Contact me by email:- maxjones1117@aol.com

or mobile:- 0797 44 11 213 for more information or to request a visit.

We also constantly look for enthusiastic volunteers to assist with the programme. There are several levels of involvement depending on experience and knowledge. For example;

1. Promotional volunteer
2. Basic Safety Advice volunteer
3. SEA Check Adviser
4. Lifeboat Sea Safety Officer

Promotional volunteers need no practical experience as they provide basic information on the service, hand out leaflets, help complete membership or SEA Check request forms etc.

Basic Safety Advice volunteers are at the next level of knowledge and give advice based on the ‘5 safety tips you can count on’ leaflet or specialist subjects of which they have expertise. For example, with simple training a volunteer can be authorised to give lifejacket advice and demonstrations.

SEA Check Advisers need more depth of knowledge on a wider variety of boating subjects as they visit boats and perform the full safety equipment advisory checks of the SEA Check scheme. Most will hold RYA qualifications such as Day Skipper or Yachtmaster and be experienced in the local area. However, this is still well within the ability of most enthusiastic and competent boaters, given the necessary training, but may be limited to a particular class of boat.

As a Lifeboat Sea Safety Officer I am on the bottom of the pile and expected to support those above me!
Our parent department of ‘Prevention and Lifeguards’ is itself a part of the Operational Lifeboat Service of the RNLI, linking us to the lifeboat station covering the area within which we work. In my case that is Angle.

I hope you will feel encouraged to participate in this venture and to that end I invite you to contact me for further information.

Max Jones
Aneurin M. Jones
Lifeboat Sea Safety Officer
email:- maxjones1117@aol.com or mobile:- 0797 44 11 213

To download a copy of the RNLI's complete guide to sea safety click here

To visit the RNLI sea safety site click here