Our Story

It started with a question: “Where are the lifeboats?”

After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Robin Jenkins visited Kamaishi in northern Japan. A local hotel owner told him that survivors had heard cries for help from the water, but no one had the means or the training to reach them. When Robin asked where the lifeboats were, the answer was another question: “What’s a lifeboat?”

Back in South Wales, Robin and a group of students at UWC Atlantic set out to change that. Together they designed and built a lifeboat and a mobile lifeboat station: a lifeboat in a box. In 2016, Atlantic Pacific, founded by Robin Jenkins and Kate Sedwell, took it to Kamaishi and trained local people to use it, creating the first volunteer-run lifeboat service in Japan. That same year, we ran our first summer school for rescue training in South Wales.

From one lifeboat to a generation of lifesavers

We quickly learned that a boat is only as good as the people who crew it. Too many people were drowning, and too few were trained to help. So training became the heart of everything we do.

Over the next ten years, we grew from a volunteer project into a registered charity with three training centres: St Donats in South Wales, Royal Docks in London and Kamaishi in Japan. We took our training into the field, from Lesbos and Sicily to the Orkney Islands. We worked with other NGOs in the central Mediterranean so that crews from different organisations train to the same standard. And in Newham, East London, we opened a search and rescue training centre that brings free water safety, first aid and rescue skills to young people in the local community.

Ten years on

Around 1,500 people have now trained with us. Around 150 of our graduates have gone on to serve in humanitarian situations, and thousands of people have been helped across Europe, the Mediterranean and East Asia. Some of our graduates have already saved lives. While volunteering on Lesvos, Tom used his AP training to perform CPR on a baby who had stopped breathing.

We are still powered by around 60 volunteers and a small core team of 5 staff. Our next ten years are about making this last: more schools, more courses and more young people ready to act, wherever they are.

Ten years in. Just getting started.