This is Coast!
At the edge of our isles
- is a natural wilderness. - SEAGULLS
Vast seas,
deep oceans,
tempestuous tides.
The relationship between us and our wild waters
is a challenge.
But one we embrace.
For work...
..play...
..and sheer necessity.
There's nowhere wilder then our open waters,
and for me, there's no bigger adrenaline rush.
But out here,
you're at the mercy of some seriously majestic natural forces,
which can make the sea a perilous place to be.
As I head for one of our most treacherous stretches,
Northumberland's north-east,
my fellow coast crew are also taking to the high seas.
Walk on the boat!
Mark's exploring how a stalwart of our oceans,
the roll-on, roll-off ferry, stays safe in wild waters.
If the water from here
gets into here, it could be lethal.
Miranda's diving into the untamed depths of Dublin Bay.
Out there is Britain's most venomous jellyfish, the Lion's Mane.
And I'm about to enter its lair.
And Dick's on the trail of a plan
to make wartime waters even wilder...
..with fire.
- The water's bubbling. - Yep.
- We're boiling the sea? - Yes.
Welcome to the wild waters of our coast.
OK, Tom.
Wild waters,
the ultimate gauntlet thrown down by nature.
But for centuries, man has looked out there
and also found a maritime muse.
Inspiration for how we work with
and survive nature at its most terrifying.
What drives people to take on the elements?
And how do we contend with perilous seas?
I'm taking a journey down the north-east Coast of Northumberland
on a quest to find out.
Starting at windswept Bamburgh
and heading for the mouth of the River Tyne.
This coast is one of Britain's most hazardous,
a 65 mile danger zone, with 780 known shipwrecks.
'I'm venturing into these wild waters with RNLI coxswain,
'John Hanvey, to investigate why they've claimed so many victims.'
What is it, John, that makes this coast so dangerous?
Well, as you can see by looking at the chart,
you have virtually a straight run up the coastline,
and then you come across the Farne Islands,
which the furthest one out is about three and a half miles,
and because the Farne Islands are blocking the route of the tide,
as it funnels through, the tide becomes very strong
and runs in loads of different directions.
So, it's like a gigantic, natural breakwater
- sticking out into the shipping lanes? - It is, yes.
It's like a millpond here today, John,
but what's it like when you've got a really big storm blowing?
It's wild, got a lot of wind, a lot of tide,
a lot of water coming over the top,
the boat's rolling
and when it's dark it makes it ten times worse.
Another thing we get on this part of the coast is fog,
and I think a lot of people who have been to sea all their life
would sooner have a gale of wind than they would the fog.
Because this coastline has a host of hidden hazards.
Basically, between the Farnes, right down over Holy Island,
we've got a lot of shallower water, we've got smaller islands,
some of which have only got about a metre of water
covered over the top of them, so if you don't know where they are,
they would catch you out.
These waters are so wild that even with modern navigation,
vessels still sail into trouble.
Two centuries ago, up to five ships a night were lost.
What did they do before the days of the RNLI?
'They looked to a local landmark.'
Bamburgh Castle.
I want to find out why it made this coast
the cradle of life-saving.
Bamburgh Castle is an impressive vantage point.
300 years ago, it was home to Dr John Sharp,
archdeacon and son of the Archbishop of York.
He devoted his life to saving others.
It's the late 1700s and Sharp is receiving weekly reports
of drowned bodies being washed up on these shores.
Sharp grows increasingly disturbed by the relentless loss of life
and becomes obsessed with making our wild waters safer.
'There was no nearby lighthouse, no ship-to-shore communication,
'no distress flares.
'So, what did Sharp come up with?
'A set of instructions.'
It was a watch and rescue system.
When the mists came down, or the waters turned wild,
it was all eyes on the coast for those at Bamburgh Castle.
He'd invented the first coastguard station.
"In every great storm,
'two men on horseback are sent from the castle
"to patrol from sunset to sunrise."
- BELL RINGS - "A bell on the south turret
"will be rung out in every thick fog as a signal.
"A person is to attend every morning to look out
"if any ships be in distress."
If any were spotted, those at the castle jumped into action.
First, a gun signalled the location of the wrecked ship.
Prepare to give fire.
GUNSHOT
One shot for the islands.
TWO GUNSHOTS
Two for north.
THREE GUNSHOTS
Three for south.
But how could you communicate with stricken vessels?
Sharp's solution was a flag and a speaking trumpet.
Ahoy there!
Help is at hand.
Enormous iron chains hauled foundering ships to shore.
The first coastguard at Bamburgh
not only warned ships away from the coastline,
but provided refuge for shipwrecked sailors,
food, first aid, beds, space to store cargo.
Despite Sharp's pioneering efforts, lives were still being lost.
There was no slipway to get a boat out to stranded ships.
He needed something remarkable.
In 1788, Sharp contacted a London coach builder, Lionel Lukin.
Lukin had just modified and patented a Norway yawl by adding air boxes,
cork gunnels and a deeper keel to improve stability and buoyancy.
Lukin called his vessel the 'unimmergible boat.'
It was intended as a Thames work boat,
but Sharp immediately saw its potential as a life-saver.
How could a river boat from the placid Thames
work in the wild waters of the North Sea?
- Hi, Tim. Very good to meet you. - Hello, Nick. Nice to meet you too.
'I'm meeting boat restorer, Tim West, to find out.'
Here it is.
The coble.
Specially designed for the north-east Coast.
Because they're going into the water this way,
the forefoot is a deep forefoot,
so it acts as a rudder when you're going into the sea.
When it's deep enough,
they would then,
they would then fit the rudder.
They'd lean it over the stern and then drop the rudder into the,
the pintles, aren't they, these holes here?
And then you've got a tiller somewhere.
I do like model boats.
There you go, you've got a tiller on. Beautiful.
So, that's what steers the boat.
This coble could be launched from a flat beach.
To stop the wild waters swallowing it,
buoyant cork panels and air chambers were added.
But was it really unsinkable?
'We're putting our scale model to the test.'
- A demo bit of sea. - This is the North Sea.
And we've managed to find two likely passengers in period dress.
Very elegantly dressed, yeah.
Lukin's principal design was to make sure the boat,
even though it was fully overwhelmed,
- it wouldn't, er, it wouldn't completely sink. - Yeah.
So, he fitted additional buoyancy in, which I've done here,
with some cork covered with calico.
Theoretically, if the boat was full of water,
it wouldn't sink, even with survivors on board.
Can we try that? Here comes the North Sea storm.
Right, here it comes.
So, that's showing that the boat copes quite well in the sea,
so let's er, let's see what happens when we submerge it.
So, it doesn't sink, and it's not even turned upside down.
So, Lupin's designed worked.
So, the basic coble with extra buoyancy
- could stay afloat in a North Sea storm. - Yep.
That's remarkable, the beginning of the lifeboat story,
demonstrated in a paddling pool on a beach at Bamburgh.
John Sharp was a visionary who conquered these wild waters.
He created the first coastguard and first lifeboat station.
This hero of the waves gave rise to a crucial rescue service
that still watches over our coast today.
The coastguard is a staple of our seas.
But a somewhat larger workhorse of our wild waters
is the roll-on, roll-off ferry.
Reliable and steadfast,
it takes a pretty wild ocean to stop them sailing.
These beasts of our maritime superhighway
evolved from times of war.
Now, they wage a daily battle to keep people and cargo moving.
Departing from Stranraer on the west coast of Scotland,
Mark's on a mission to investigate how 'RoRos'
and their passengers stomach our wild waters.
If you were going to design a ship
to take on the high seas,
a roll-on, roll-off ferry might not be the obvious choice.
It's not, on first appearance,
the most watertight of vessels. BEEPING
RoRos have a huge, open stern,
leading to a cavernous hull.
If the water from here
gets into here, it could be lethal.
On the 31st of January, 1953,
it did and it was.
The wildest storm in living memory claimed the first RoRo casualty...
..the Princess Victoria.
On this very route, Stranraer to Larne,
her stern doors were ripped from their hinges,
water flooded in.
"Despite the valiant efforts of her crew
"and other seafarers,
"the Princess Victoria foundered
"off the coast of Northern Ireland
"with a loss of 133 lives."
An inquiry blamed wild waters and a fatal flaw in the stern door.
It didn't provide a watertight seal for the car deck.
Since then, failing doors and ferocious seas
have been factors in two more European ferry sinkings,
the 1987 Herald of Free Enterprise
and The Estonia, less than a decade later.
'I want to investigate what was learned from these disasters'
and how ferries cope with stormy seas.
Wild waters have been the driving force
behind the science and safety of RoRo ferries.
Whilst design hasn't changed, technology has.
Now these floating giants have CCTV everywhere.
Sensors ensure doors are sealed shut.
Checks between crew and bridge
are constant before and during crossings.
If anything is awry,
a ship won't sail.
But what happens if a ferry hits trouble out at sea?
Emergency drills are another product of lessons learnt.
BEEP
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please.
"This is the captain speaking, please listen very carefully."
All hands muster to emergency stations.
Each week, crews from around our shores
take part in emergency drills to evacuate passengers
from these floating giants.
Today, I'm going to join them.
Go to the left, bear left and round the sink.
Stay there and do your best.
In an emergency at sea,
passengers are instructed to find their nearest assembly station.
Gosh, it's somewhere out here.
First team, it's 10 minutes of air time. 10 minutes of airtime left.
Can you imagine what this would be like in a real emergency,
finding your way round this labyrinth of doors?
The situation has now become very serious.
As a result, I've decided to abandon ship.
"Evacuate..."
'For the crew on board,
'this evacuation procedure is second nature.'
I think it's down here, outside decks.
Chaps in orange.
I feel safer now.
- I need a life jacket. - There you are. - Ah, thanks.
There are four lifeboats on this ferry,
each holding 125 people.
And these people will help you onto the boat!
Please do what's instructed.
Walk on the boat,
move on down and sit on the opposite side of the boat, please.
There we are, safe.
That was really very exciting.
You know, these guys do it all the time, every Sunday morning,
so they're so calm, but it was so quick, so fast.
Evacuation at sea is thankfully rare.
But there's one factor none of us can control on our wild waters...
'..the great British weather.'
But can we be one step ahead of it?
'Paddy McAlinden is the ship's master.'
We have got much more detailed forecasts. As you can see here,
there's everything in this, we've got sea states, wave heights,
wind strengths, and they're planning this for every three hours,
right through for a four-day sequence.
Nowadays, you can really set your watch
on the time of day a front going through,
they are that accurate.
Ultimately though, whether you sail or not is your decision as master?
My decision, the decision rests with me and if I say,
"I do not consider the conditions favourable for the voyage",
I will not sail.
Just a tiny percentage of ferry crossings are cancelled
due to bad weather.
The sheer size of RoRos means even when the waters are wild,
you're probably in the most stable vessel on our seas.
If you've got a big swell
and, say, a small boat,
you'll literally go up and down the full height of the waves,
just like this - there you go.
Now, if we've, on the other hand, got a RoRo ferry,
the same swell...
and that's going through the waves something like this...
..a funnel there...
..the vertical heave is much less,
and therefore it's a much more comfortable ride.
So, why do so many of us still get seasick?
Ferries can't avoid sideways roll - a key cause of nausea.
On a RoRo the passengers are on higher decks than the cars
for safety reasons.
That makes a sideways roll much worse.
Put the RoRo ferry
in a typical swell -
you can see that the movement
down below is much less
than up on top.
Of course, that will mean it's much more nauseous up here
than it is down here.
Millions suffer seasickness,
but what's going on inside our bodies when the nausea hits?
I'm putting myself on the line for science.
Hi, John.
Nice to meet you - and here's Rose, my assistant.
Professor John Golding from the University of Westminster
is an expert in motion sickness and spatial disorientation.
So, can you make me seasick?
Well, we haven't got a boat here to actually do that,
but we can mimic it
- by simply using a rotating chair. - Right.
- Here we go. - Sitting comfortably? - OK.
And Rose, if you could pass me the blindfold -
- do you mind wearing this blindfold? - No, that's all right.
Now, I must warn you, I've never, ever been seasick.
- Right. - I've done lots of sailing, but never been seasick.
- Well, this is going to be a challenge. - It is indeed.
The reason we have the blindfold is to cut out your horizon view
to make it a bit more difficult for you to resist motion sickness.
MUSIC: You Spin Me Round by Dead Or Alive
- Round I go. - And speed up a bit.
Head up.
Down. Hold it down.
Up. Hold it.
Down.
I mean, are some people more susceptible to sea sickness
- than others? - Yes, there's huge differences.
It's partly genetics - it's also partly age.
When you're young, about eight or nine years old,
that's the most susceptible period of your life,
then you get slightly more resistant as you get older,
and women tend to be slightly more susceptible, as well.
Sea sickness is caused when the inner ear canals,
which sense rotation spinning in the chair,
conflict with the inner ear otoliths which sense acceleration,
nodding the head.
Beginning to feel ever so slightly nauseous.
Head up, head down.
- Head up... - Yes, it's coming on now.
..and head down. Urgh...
- Head up...and head down. - Ugh. Eurgh...
The sensory confusion tricks the body into thinking it's poisoned,
which is why we're sick.
HE VOMITS
That could be what we call the avalanche phenomenon,
that things seem OK to begin with, and then it suddenly comes on.
Oh, God.
Well, just keep your head still and breathe.
- I have no idea where I am. - Breathe - breathe slowly.
HE CHUCKLES Oh...
Oh, dear.
I'm in good company, at least - even Nelson suffered sea sickness.
Our bodies might bow to wild waters, but these titans of the waves
have all the available technology to keep us safe from savage seas.
It doesn't take long to get your sea legs back,
and suddenly I feel very much in control.
- Turning that to the centre. - That's the thrusters?
The thrusters, now, are back controlled here.
I'm about to do something that, as a sailor, I've always wanted.
Oh, it's so exciting!
OK then, Mark, push the handles right down.
- Right to the end? - Right down.
- 10. - That's it.
HE LAUGHS
- OK, you've got it. - I don't believe it! - Yeah, you've done it there.
I've taken the helm of a RoRo out into our wild waters.
Unforgiving seas are not for the faint-hearted.
Some hardened seafarers spend most of their life in wild waters...
sea birds.
But there is one patch of solid ground to which they flock -
the Farne Islands.
28 rocky bastions standing steadfast against swell and tide.
Wildlife photographer Richard Taylor-Jones
has come to this inaccessible idyll at a wild time of the year.
It's June.
The Farnes play host to 140,000 arctic terns...
shags...
puffins...
guillemots...
and eiders -
the male our most handsome, heaviest and fastest flying duck...
..the female just a brown bundle.
These feathered seafarers
have worked out how to do everything at sea,
except breed.
For that, they come ashore.
A carpet of copulation swarming and swirling for a few short weeks
to produce their young.
Why choose the Farnes?
Quite simply, the islands are free of ground-dwelling predators -
rats, cats, dogs, foxes -
kept away by the wild sea.
But ironically, safety on land isn't guaranteed
for eider ducklings.
They leave their nests as soon as they've hatched
and make for the sea.
Food will not be brought to them -
it's move or starve.
Hungry eyes watch and wait.
Herring gulls have a snack in mind.
For four hours, this eider duck mother is cornered...
GULL CRIES
..but one chick escapes her watchful eye.
It's now easy prey.
Not all stay safe on the Farnes,
but most ducklings will reach the sea.
Soon this busy, bustling world will empty.
The birds will head back out into wild waters.
The power of the sea sculpts the coast...
..bearing witness to tragedy...
and triumph.
I'm exploring one of Britain's most treacherous coasts -
the North East.
Wild waters awash with feats of conquest and survival.
I've reached Seahouses Harbour.
Getting in here takes some nifty navigation...
..and the help of the Longstone Lighthouse, six miles offshore.
But two centuries ago it was the lighthouse keeper's daughter
who became a leading light in the world of life-saving.
Come to this coast and you can't miss Grace Darling.
In 1838 she spotted the steamship Forfarshire
through the window of the lighthouse.
Reports at the time described the seas as being
"lashed by the tempest into the most tumultuous commotion."
The ship was broken in two - one half lodging on the rocks.
Grace and her father rowed into the eye of the storm
and rescued nine survivors -
and Grace became a national heroine.
The splendidly named
Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned
awarded Grace a specially minted medal.
On it, a cherub blowing life into the dying embers of a torch -
a metaphor for saving life.
It coincided with a burgeoning interest
in the science of resuscitation...
..but, 200 years ago,
how did they set about bringing the drowned back to life?
Hello, Craig.
Craig Barclay is a local historian.
The technique which probably seems strangest to us
in the 21st century
is the tobacco enema,
and the key to that is the bellows.
That sounds incredibly painful - how did it work?
Essentially, imagine me with my pipe of tobacco.
Imagine you have just been dragged out of the harbour -
life appears extinct.
My solution to this problem is to take a long drag on my pipe,
to blow the smoke through a rubber tube into the bellows
- and to insert these bellows into your backside and blow. - Ouch!
I think I'd probably jump clean back into the water again.
Not very much fun,
but it was felt that tobacco would stimulate you back into life.
Blowing smoke rings.
If you were unlucky enough to drown in a spot
without a handy rectal fumigation kit, fear not -
other methods were available.
The barrel roll, to force air in and out of the chest.
And the trotting horse method,
to compress the chest and bounce the body to restore breathing.
Harbours like this were the front line
in the fight-back against wild waters.
There was just one catch.
These imaginative methods weren't very effective.
Half a century later, new guidelines were published.
Instruction manuals such as this were in circulation.
They said you should never hang someone upside-down,
you should never roll them on a barrel
you should never blow tobacco into their backside.
I imagine a round of applause, probably, from certain sea-goers.
I think a round of applause from many.
The techniques recommended continued to be warming the body,
massaging the body,
but also inserting air into the body -
again using the bellows,
but now inserted into the nostril with the other nostril sealed,
mouth sealed,
and once you had a good seal you could use that to inflate the lungs.
So a first step towards modern resuscitation.
It may have taken some eye-watering experimentation
to get to our modern world of defibrillators and oxygen masks,
but the principle of resuscitation remains unchanged -
getting air back into our lungs.
On our coast, nature has the power to take your breath away...
..but some people find the wildest water below the surface.
Under the waves lurks an untamed world of watery wildlife.
In Dublin Bay,
Miranda's preparing to take the plunge.
Here, these seemingly tranquil waters have a wild side...
and come with a sting in their tail.
Dublin Bay is a Mecca for open sea swimmers -
they come here every weekend
to flex their muscles against tide and temperature.
Four minutes.
But these wild waters aren't just home to aquatic athletes.
Out there is Britain's most venomous jellyfish, the lion's mane -
and I'm about to enter its lair.
The lion's mane can grow up to two metres in diameter,
and its tentacles trail over an area of 500 square metres.
It's one of the largest jellyfish in the world.
This king of the underwater jungle
feeds on plankton and all other jellyfish.
Many swimmers have had painful encounters on this coast.
So, how did it feel?
- What was it like? - Nasty.
I mean, there's an absolute sudden, um, just stinging pain,
and it was really, really intense.
It was kind of like a burn and sting at the same time,
really, really strong -
like, I just literally screamed in the water, I was like, "Whoa!"
I tried everything - I tried whisky on it and then whisky in me,
I tried urine, I tried vinegar, I tried the whole shebang,
and it was torture.
- They say alcohol is very good. - What, to drink it?
- Yes. - SHE LAUGHS
Right, off you go.
As the swimmers set off hoping for a sting-free race,
I want to know what attracts these venomous jellyfish
to this coast...
and why they're so hazardous.
- Good morning. - How you doing, you all right?
I'm heading out with Dr Tom Doyle
of the National University of Ireland, Galway
and Damien Haberlin from University College Cork.
They're trying to unlock the secrets of the lion's mane
in a bid to find an antidote.
Just 500 metres offshore is a lion's mane hot spot.
What is it about this area that they really like?
There seems to be some sort of a retaining feature,
and the jellyfish likes that kind of habitat,
where basically they're moving back and forth with the tide,
they're not being swept out on the ocean currents,
and a lot of jellyfish,
they do actually like to stay in a particular area,
so there'll be a lot of other jellyfish species here
- that they'd actually feed on. - OK. - So...
- Oh, look! There's actually two. - Yeah! Oh, yeah - great.
And there's a blue jelly, as well.
Lion's manes are relatively weak swimmers,
but congregate in favourable conditions.
So, how do you study a potentially lethal jellyfish?
Get in these wild waters and catch one.
Cue wet suits...
..and a liberal application of petroleum jelly.
I've never taken so many precautions going into the water before.
That feels disgusting.
I feel like I've trowelled it on.
You're looking good, there, actually.
Suited and booted, it's time to sit and wait.
OK there's one there, there's one there, go there.
Is that definitely a lion's mane?
Yeah, it's definitely a lion's mane.
Brilliant. Oh, that's good.
Going to scoop it up.
I'm going to stay back a bit - those tentacles look really long!
Our catch is a mere baby.
Great stuff, well done.
Picking up a fully grown specimen would be highly dangerous.
And there we go.
Oh, that's a good one - look at the tentacles, wow.
- Really sticky! - Plenty of venom.
- Oh, brilliant. - Yeah.
Plenty of venom indeed -
it's managed to find a tiny patch of my exposed skin.
I think I've been stung, actually.
A bit like a nettle sting, I think, just up here.
Yeah, yeah - it looks red,
- so it looks like you've been stung, all right. - Yeah.
- Yeah, OK. The real deal, then. - Yeah, yeah. - Hardcore.
- You can join the team now. - Thank you!
So, I've obviously been stung by a very small bit of tentacle -
what reaction is happening inside my body?
Each tentacle has thousands and thousands of stinging capsules
like a balloon,
and inside that is coiled up, effectively, a harpoon -
these balloons burst,
that fires the harpoon that pierces your skin
and then the venom is injected into your system.
Once inside, scientists think - based on other jellies -
that venom attaches on to red blood cells,
making a hole which releases potassium.
A serious sting with large amounts of venom
could cause a dangerous flush of potassium,
whose effects the scientists are still investigating.
Developing an antidote
means collecting the venom by taking off some toxic tentacles.
- All right, so I've got a load of tentacles there. - OK...
- All right... - Snip.
So, trimming those tentacles off -
is that actually harming the jellyfish?
No, these animals lose tentacles all the time,
when they capture prey or when they get entangled in seaweed,
- or anything like that. - We can see them floating around in the water.
Yeah, absolutely, so, you know,
- taking some tentacles... - It's just like a haircut.
- It's just like a haircut, yeah. - All right.
This sample will be analysed in a laboratory.
The scientists hope their work here
will not only help them understand stings,
but could lead to successful antivenom for the lion's mane.
The very wildness of these waters
lures us, as well as these beautiful, captivating creatures.
Creatures we're one step closer to understanding,
thanks to the swimmers and the scientists.
We're exploring the wild waters of our coast.
From vast expanses of open seas...
..to epic oceans, whose waves crash on our coast.
The lure of our wild waters is irresistible.
I'm traversing the treacherous tides of the North East,
on a mission to uncover how man contends with nature to save lives.
I've reached Tynemouth...
..a seemingly calm river-mouth with deadly obstacles.
Here, shallow seas meet with shifting sands
and hidden rocks known ominously as the Black Middens.
This treacherous topography is a natural wrecking zone.
Rescue by lifeboat is difficult enough...
..so, can you rise above it?
This is a breeches buoy -
basically a life buoy attached to the top part of a pair of trousers.
A line was fired from the shore to the sinking ship, or the wreck,
and then one at a time survivors climbed into the breeches buoy
and were hauled to safety by the onshore team.
Good in theory,
but what I want to know is how it worked in reality,
and why this antiquated aid is still being used
on this part of the coast.
Invented in 1808, the breeches buoy was once commonplace on our coast...
..but it was never more needed here than in 1864,
when the Black Middens claimed three ships in one dark night.
The local coastguard
couldn't operate the breeches buoy quickly enough.
Watching was one John Morrison.
Realising trained backup could have saved lives,
he founded the first Volunteer Life Brigade.
They're one of just two remaining teams in Britain
trained in this ship-to-shore rescue system.
But how much graft does it take to save lives?
In my quest to find out first-hand how the breeches buoy works,
I've volunteered to be rescued.
I'm heading out to my 19th century shipwreck,
where the stricken crew include the local vicar,
who's trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Eternal Father, creator of land and sea,
we pray for all those involved in the life...
Today's drill is for display purposes,
but it's still an essential part of Brigade training.
Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade, action!
That'll do.
A rocket fires a line from land to boat.
Fire!
No mean feat in wild waters.
The breeches buoy is then hauled across to the shipwreck.
Here we go - it's my turn.
And now my fate is in the hands of the Brigade.
This is just a drill,
but it's exciting enough to give me a flavour
of what it would be like being rescued from a sinking ship
in a raging storm -
it would be frightening.
It's surprising how the cold of the water takes your breath away.
I've got very little energy for saving myself -
I'm entirely in the hands of the Brigade.
Little short bites, guys, come on!
It takes the team less than two minutes
to drag me the hundred metres to safety.
Thank you, thank you.
HE PANTS
I'm breathless, and I've done nothing
but been dragged through the water -
at the most incredible speed, it's far faster than I expected.
But there's no rest for me.
Now I'm turning rescuer, and joining the Brigade to haul in the next man.
My arms are burning.
Keep going, guys, come on.
Little short bites, little short bites.
This team have developed their own language -
every command practised until its second nature.
The water's pulling it...
Keep a hand on the rope at all times.
Do you feel the shackle coming? Tell the guy behind you, please.
- Shackle! - Shackle! - Shackle! - Shackle!
Fine, how are you?!
LAUGHTER
Oh! Oh!
My arms are like overcooked spaghetti.
I've got nothing below the shoulders.
I've only hauled in the vicar -
these volunteers will do this ten times.
Twice for each rescue.
The breeches buoy is rarely used today,
but the teamwork it demands has remained essential
for overcoming our wild waters.
Being part of this team and sharing their camaraderie for a short while
helps to wash away fears of the ocean and its violent moods.
This band of brothers
are testament to the courage of Tyneside's volunteers.
Courage is often called for on our coast.
Our waters are at their wildest during times of war.
One narrow stretch has been contested for centuries -
the English Channel.
During the Second World War, plans were afoot to invade.
Hitler's eyes were fixed on our white cliffs.
This coast was renamed Hellfire Corner.
Dick Strawbridge is investigating how these wild waters
made front page news,
when they were put to work to extinguish the enemy threat.
The Second World War has thrown up many strange stories.
Rumours are spread fastest
when Britain has faced her greatest threats.
But one tale persists to this day...
the story that German troops
actually invaded the south coast in 1940.
This headline on the 15th of December 1940
claims that 80,000 charred German bodies
were washed up on British beaches after a failed invasion attempt -
they'd been consumed by fire.
Now, I'm an ex-military man, I've never heard of this -
but this isn't any local rag, this is the New York Times.
What was this "all-consuming fire" off our shores?
If it claimed 80,000 victims and foiled an invasion,
why isn't this episode of wartime history something we all know?
It's quiet and quaint now,
but 75 years ago, this was Britain's front line.
I want to uncover the truth about the fiery hell of these waters
and the secret wartime weapon
that supposedly stopped a German invasion.
GERMAN MARCHING SONG
By May 1940, the Germans had taken and occupied
Belgium, Holland and France - just 20 miles away.
Most of Britain's weapons had been left behind
on the beaches of Dunkirk.
Our Channel coast was a sitting duck.
We installed some obvious defences -
pillboxes, tunnels, gun emplacements...
but were we really going to use all-consuming fire
to scupper the enemy?
One man believed we could.
Lord Hankey, a man obsessed with developing weapons of fire.
Lord Hankey was the head of the top secret Petroleum Warfare Department.
His classical education
sparked an interest in using fire to fight the enemy.
Hankey knew the 7th century Byzantines built ships
that spewed out flames to form a fiery floating barrier on the sea.
It inspired his own idea for an impenetrable defence -
setting the Channel on fire.
But to make fire, you need this stuff -
fuel.
By 1940, Britain had squirreled away a surplus of it.
As the invasion threat loomed,
Lord Hankey was determined to put it to use.
But could Hankey pull off his audacious plan
to defend our coast with a fence of fire?
I know fuel floats on water, but how do you get it to burn?
David, lovely to meet you.
- Good afternoon. - Yeah, good to see you!
To find out, I've enlisted chemist Dr David Kinnison
from Southampton University.
Is it as simple as pouring oil on water and setting it on fire,
- because oil floats? - No, it just won't burn.
Why doesn't it light?
It requires a lot of heat,
because there's not enough vapour there
that can mix with air to ignite.
So, what do we do?
Well, what we can do is introduce some lighter fuels -
for example, something like petrol.
Right, petrol, we know petrol you put a match anywhere near it,
it goes off - but does it burn on water?
Yes, it does, and the reason it will burn
is because it's highly volatile, very easy to light.
It's not the actual petrol, it's the vapour above it.
Indeed, that is exactly it.
- That does go "whoof", doesn't it? - Yeah.
So, as a solution to your defences?
This will not last - it's over very quickly, your defence is lost.
So, how do we turn this into a defensive weapon, then?
If we add heavier oils, these will last longer
and we can get a sustained burn.
- So, it's a cocktail? - Yes.
Right, OK.
What's happening now, there's this petrol -
as it burns, it generates heat,
and that heat is absorbed by the oils
and they will start to vaporise and burn as well.
- That is burning a lot more ferociously. - Yep.
- In fact, the water's bubbling. - Yep.
Wow.
That's... That's the actual water turning into steam and bubbling out.
Yeah. The sea on fire.
Our experiment demonstrates
how a flame barrage could work in principle,
but the wild waters of the Channel
are a different challenge altogether.
So, did Hankey really do it?
Hello, hello!
- Lovely to meet you, Paul. - How do you do?
Brothers John and Paul Stone were there the day the sea caught fire.
We lived just at the top of the hill,
and you'd see this curtain of black smoke come up.
I can remember Mum and Dad saying,
"Oh, they're testing the oil defences down in the bay."
The whole line of black smoke all the way across the bay.
It was so dense and sticky and black
that they'd actually discoloured the White Cliffs of Dover,
so our white cliffs
became grey cliffs for quite a few years afterwards.
John and Paul had witnessed one of the first flame barrage experiments.
The tests worked - they were even filmed,
so scientists could study the weapon and make adjustments.
This was fire on an unprecedented scale -
just imagine it. We've got flames 40 feet in the air,
black, noxious smoke coming up, covering the beach,
even going over the cliffs.
It was impressive -
but was it a practical proposition?
Was this defence system ever rolled out along our coast,
and if so, how?
To find out, I've come a few miles north
where local historian Stuart Smith made an incredible discovery.
- Stuart, how lovely to meet you. - Good to meet you, as well.
- What have we got here? - Ah!
A little prized possession of mine.
- It's part of the flame barrage? - Yes. - How do you know that?
It's quite simple, really -
cos when I pulled it out,
it actually still smelt of the petroleum, the mixture.
There... I suppose there's a...
- Yeah. - There's a very slight whiff to it, but...
Unfortunately it's been exposed to the air now,
- but when it... - Yeah, but actually you can see,
- it's all black and tarry inside. - Yeah.
- This is an amazing piece of history, isn't it? - Oh, that's why I love it.
But where did this go to?
The hotel there, The Clarendon Hotel,
and when they were digging the new wall that's along here,
they actually came across the pipes.
Now, I'm lucky enough to have the photograph, still.
This is the exact spot - you can see everything's still the same.
Yeah, this is the exact spot.
How did they get the fuel out into the sea?
Well, they had pumps down in the cellar of the hotel.
They built two massive tanks at the back and it pumped across here,
and they say that the pumps were so powerful
that they could pump the mixture up to a mile.
Why would they have it in a pub?
To hide it - pure camouflage.
I've never been in a pub where petroleum, not pints,
once ran through its pipes.
And if you look through here,
you can actually see where the pipes came in,
and they're all still there.
This would have been the heart of the whole system,
and it all would have happened here.
I mean, the Germans were coming,
the Battle of Britain was raging above our heads in the skies,
and the men were desperate for a defence -
and this is it.
The plan was to defend key beaches
from Kent to Dorset.
There were flame barrages
installed in Studland Bay...
..Rye...
..key beaches around Dover...
all the way up to Sandwich.
So, did we fire up this barrage and stop a German invasion in 1940?
We know the sea caught fire...
..there's physical proof the barrage was installed...
..but there's still no evidence that the Germans invaded...
and no trace of 80,000 charred bodies.
This headline is all I've got.
Surely there's no smoke without fire?
Historian Lee Richards
has studied how fact and fiction merge in the fog of war.
There certainly would be charred bodies in the Channel.
At the time, the Germans were doing practice drills,
getting incendiary bombs thrown on them,
aircrew being shot down, naval engagements -
so, there would be lots of bodies in the Channel.
So there were some charred bodies, but not on the same scale?
No, not at all. People were coming to the wrong conclusions.
- Did we actually play on that? - Absolutely.
Britain had formed something
- called the Underground Propaganda Committee... - Right.
..and their job was to exaggerate Britain's military potential.
They'd come up with a rumour that there had been an invasion,
it had been defeated by this British secret weapon
that sets the sea on fire.
It got into the foreign press,
it was then picked up by the British press.
So, the information was being passed out to different...
and coming back into our press to be spread as news,
even though we started the rumour.
Absolutely correct, yes.
Leaflets were also printed to warn the Germans
that invading Britain would be unwise,
and dropped over enemy lines.
Here we have one that helped to spread the story of the burning sea.
Ah!
It's giving them phrases that they would find useful
during their invasion.
It has such phrases as, "I can smell oil on the sea",
"Look, the water's burning",
"Look at the captain, he's burning beautifully".
It's really quite a graphic message -
- "Come to England, we will burn you and you will end up as ashes." - Yes.
This propaganda - did it have a positive effect?
Here we are, you believe that we can set the sea on fire -
did it affect the Germans, do you think?
I mean, it's certainly detrimental to German morale...
But good for our morale.
Yes, as I say, perhaps more importantly,
it was good for the morale of Britain,
it was good for the morale of the occupied countries,
it was telling the neutral countries, particularly America,
that we were still in the fight, we were still strong,
and we had the potential to win.
A year would elapse between the headline in the New York Times
and the Americans joining the war.
In 1940, the flame barrage was our winning weapon.
A weapon that had once petrified the enemy,
yet reassured Britain and her allies -
a weapon whose existence was enough.
It never actually needed to be used.
Whether it was the fire on the sea or the firing of imaginations,
wild rumours generated in this part of the coast
were actually one of Britain's secret weapons
during the Second World War.
Our wild waters have been both barrier...
..and gateway.
Pitching ourselves against nature
makes for thrilling spectacle...
..and spectacular stories.
Wild waters test our mettle.
Contending with them demands resourcefulness,
resilience, respect.
Not only do they shape our coast, but also our coastal character.