The Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution (Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij) was established in 1824 as a maritime life saving organisation, rendering its services free of charge. The Institution’s 70 lifeboats are manned by nearly 1.100 professionally trained volunteers. Only the best equipment is good enough for the KNRM, which is renowned for its advanced 34 knots Rigid Inflatable lifeboats in all sizes, up to the 62ft ‘Arie Visser’-class. Its volunteers participate in regular training programmes and courses, preparing them for their crucial role on board lifeboats. Despite –or, rather: thanks to- the voluntary nature of their ‘job’, KNRM crews are famously committed to their lifeboat work. The KNRM’s lifeboats operate in the North Sea, Dutch coastal waters and estuaries, and on the large fresh water lake IJsselmeer, including adjacent waters IJmeer and Randmeren (the lakes between the ‘old’ land and the ‘new’ polders).
Operational readiness
Dedication and proximity to the station are essential traits for lifeboat crews, since the KNRM’s 42 odd stations are required to launch within ten minutes after the alarm is raised, whatever the weather and sea state, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The 1,100 volunteers are alerted at home or at work through a bleeper system. The lifeboat stations organise weekly evening sessions for exercising and maintenance. The KNRM’s lifeboats operate under the wings of the Dutch Coast Guard, without formally belonging to this governmental agency.
Rescue missions
The KNRM received in 2008 over 2,000 distress calls and rescued more than 3,300 people. Our lifeboats’ services to merchant vessels, fishing craft, yachts, surfers and swimmers, downed aircraft and even beached whales, in short, to every seaborne creature in need of help, range from saving life from shipwreck to piloting ships into port in heavy weather and ferrying patients to the shore. A complimentary activity is the KNRM’s Radio Medical Service, which provides medical advice world wide to all kinds of shipping, as long as they have the means to communicate with our team of six doctors. If medical evacuations are needed from vessels steaming within the range of our lifeboats, KNRM craft may be deployed for the purpose, depending on the means of transport considered most suitable given the patient’s condition.
High costs
Deploying 70 fast lifeboats, which often sail in extremely heavy weather that would keep other sailors in port, and regularly training 1100 volunteers, is bound to be an expensive activity. Gasoil, maintenance to keep state-of-the-art craft in mint condition, repair of –sometimes quite extensive- damage, training and personal equipment of the crews, including the best of survival suits, and taking care of casualties, cost some € 12 million a year. Only a minor slice of these costs (less than 10%) are spent on overhead, needed for running the organisation and fund raising. Since its establishment in 1824, the KNRM and its two forebears have managed to steer free of subsidies and charging its ‘clients’. Costs are entirely met by voluntary contributions: regular donations by ‘Rescuers ashore’, legacies and gifts. By operating under the wings of the coastguard, the KNRM is in fact contributing to the government’s coffers rather than the other way round.
Join the lifeboat while staying safely ashore
The KNRM needs your help to stay afloat, but we do not require you to embark on a lifeboat in terrible tempests and face the perils of the sea yourselves. You can help, though, by your contribution: even €25,- a year will make you KNRM ‘Rescuers ashore’ and in return we will keep you regularly informed about our work and invite you for special events organised for our backers.
Already a KNRM Rescuer ashore?
You could help us enormously by telling others about the importance of our work, the gallantry with which it is carried out –our year reports are awash with examples of this- and the extraordinary prudence with which every donated euro is spent. Thanks to all our volunteers’ contributions in kind –from crews to Board- every € 1,- donated to the KNRM produces at least € 1.63 in life saving value (based on the Expanded Value Added Statement-model). The KNRM needs your goodwill and generosity to continue, at least for another two centuries its services, which have since 1824 saved at least ... lives.
