UK
Girbau UK has donated one of its HS-6008 washers to the RNLI’s Tower Lifeboat station, the busiest in the country. It was in response to an appeal by Stuart Boyd, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Launderers, who has chosen the RNLI Tower Lifeboat station as the charity the Company will support during his year as Master.
Tower Lifeboat in central London is the RNLI’s busiest station and is manned 24/7 all year round with a crew and boat ready to launch in 90 seconds, according to Keith Cima, RNLI Thames helmsman. Since 2002, the team has responded to over 6,000 call outs and saved more than 275 lives. “The laundry throughput for both crew and casualties is prodigious, and needs high temperature to deal with river water and other contamination and a robust reliable machine. The donation of a machine from Girbau has revolutionised our laundry arrangements and is massively appreciated by all the crew.”
Based next to Waterloo Bridge, the lifeboat station covers nearly 14 miles of River Thames between Woolwich Ferry and Battersea Bridge. It uses a 10.5m E-class Mk 2 in-shore lifeboat with 850HP of twin-jet drive and a speed of 45 knots, the fastest craft plying the river. The station operates with two full-time and two volunteer crew on every 12-hour shift.
The existing washer was in constant use cleaning the large heavy-duty towels and blankets used to dry and warm people pulled from the water. It is also used to wash the crew’s underlayers and thermals. Because it was a domestic machine, it could neither cope with the volume and intensity of use, nor provide the required high temperature disinfection.
“When we heard about the tireless work of the RNLI’s Tower Lifeboat station, we were only too pleased to be able to offer our support in the form of a Girbau HS-6008 washer,” says Peter Marsh, managing director of Girbau UK.
