BBC Yorkshire
Spurn Point is home to Britain’s only professional life boat crew. Of the 232 life boat crews in the country, the Humber team is the only paid, full time operation. This small community of lifeboat-men and their families is isolated and remote, but it plays a vital part in the policing of one of the UK’s busiest shipping lanes.
In their 200 year history, the men of the Humber Lifeboat have been awarded 33 RNLI medals, one George Medal and one MBE. Their role as saviours of the seas should not be underestimated.
As part of the BBC’s Working the Sea season, True North spent a month living and working with the seven men fighting to save lives off the Humber coast. Together with their families, they lead isolated lives revolving entirely around their jobs at sea. We follow Coxswain Dave Steenvorden and the community he leads through events as diverse as policing the shoreline, responding to emergency rescues, and disrupting a child’s birthday party to rush out to a rescue.
We follow the team as they rescue a stricken Scandinavian vessel with a hole in its bow, slowly sinking into the choppy and dangerous North Sea. Dave and the team succeed in saving all hands on the boat despite the odds being stacked against them.
This revealing, intimate film traces the loneliness and dependency of life on Spurn Point, and gives an insight into the lives of men who choose to put the safety of people at sea, first.