The SAR RC
Thanks for that comprehensive explanation. However, that appears to be a very restrictive training environment that you work under. Not being able to live winch unless you have a 15-20 knot wind in the hover must lead to an awful lot of missed training opportunities when the weather is good. As for a dearth of safety equipment, that's just sinful.
All those restrictions you describe would be less of a problem if everyone that was being recruited had years and years of SAR experience behind them. But that's not the case is it? SAR novices are being recruited and of course as time progresses, Bristow will have no option but to recruit more SAR novices as military SAR becomes a distant memory. With that being an inconvenient truth, Coastguard SAR really needs to look at removing some of those barriers you describe because a few years down the line, there is going to be a notably high proportion of UK SAR aircrew who have never practised some of the most basic SAR training exercises. CAA take note.