Wattisham and Culdrose would be the nearest bases
and Chivenor - no further from the middle bit of the Channel than Culdrose. We don't want Crab to feel left out!
short on crew numbers
...but they are borrowing crewmembers from other flts to fill the gaps until new people finish training, so it's very unlikely that they would be unable to respond if need be.
Just out of interest, does anyone have information on how decisive a role the MIRG teams played at the 3 incidents to which they have apparently responded so far? For the record, I'm not having a dig, I'm genuinely interested.