Roland Mckie

Roly has recently retired from His Majesty’s Coastguard (HMCG) of the United Kingdom, after 30 years’ service. Roly Started his working life as a Flight Information Service Officer (a basic form of Air Traffic Service) and operations assistant at a general aviation airfield in Essex, UK. He later moved to Stansted Airport with the company he worked for and became an aircraft handling and operations officer. He learned to sail during this time by spending time coastal yachting. He joined the UK Royal Air Force in late 1982 and trained as an air defence radar, communications and surveillance systems operator. He served for 9 years before leaving to re-join civilian life in 1991. He joined the HM Coastguard in December 1992, at MRCC Dover, on the Channel coast of southeast England. His training was carried out at HM Coastguard’s Training Centre at Highcliffe, in Dorset, England. Roly Started operational duties as a Watch Officer at Dover and spent his time conducting Channel Navigation Information Service (CNIS) radar surveillance and tracking of vessels.

This included the interception of vessels not complying with the rules of the TSS, by Coastguard surveillance aircraft (pre AIS and there was no identification system available other than the human eye from an observation aircraft or other vessel). He was also carried out SAR coordination working under the direction of the SMC. After 2 ½ years at Dover Roly transferred to MRCC Yarmouth, on the east coast of England, roughly opposite Ijmuiden in the Netherlands. MRCC Yarmouth was responsible for SAR and counter pollution response for an area of the southern North Sea. After 3 years at Yarmouth, he gained promotion to Watch Manager taking on leadership of a 6-person team and acting as lead SMC and team manager. As GMDSS came into effect in 1999, Roly was present during the transition from the old ways to the new system. MRCC Yarmouth handled around 800 incidents per year, some of them quite serious. It also monitored and responded to emergencies on the UKs southern North Sea gas platforms and installations. He estimates that during his operational MRCC career (12 years) he was on duty and involved in the SAR coordination of approximately 500 incidents whilst at Dover (2 ½ years) and around 1,600 SAR incidents in his 9 ½ years at MRCC Yarmouth.

In 2005, Roly applied for a role in the Coastguard HQ and moved to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) HQ building in Southampton, UK (HMCG is part of the wider MCA). He had a new role as SAR Operations Officer working as a staff officer with the senior officers who managed HMCG and provided operational policy, procedure and process direction and instructions to the service. During this time Roly developed a Lessons Learned reporting process for HMCG. Roly gained further promotion to become SAR Standards Officer (Maritime) and was focused on the delivery of standardised processes and procedures for the Coastguard, and conducting operational audits of the service. He also developed and became subject specialist for the UK Coastguard’s mobile telephone emergency location protocols in compliance with the UK national law enabling emergency services to obtain this information for any person who had made an emergency call (999/112 (911)) or who was presumed, from information received, to be in danger. In the mid-2010s Roly was part of the Future Coastguard project which conducted the redesign and reformation of the UK MRCC network, communications infrastructure and coastal rescue services. He worked on evaluation and analysis of radio (VHF and MF) and telephone communications data, and the development of tests of new operational concepts e.g. redesigning the way that the UK Coastguard managed incidents and handled communications.

He also designed the concept to divide the UK into operational zones so that the electronic command and control system and radio and telephone communications could be electronically shared around the country, enabling an operator anywhere to log into or out of a zone or zones to take control of the them and deliver distress watch and SAR coordination in those zones. Roly joined the ICAO-IMO SAR Joint Working Group as UK Maritime member in 2009 and served on that group until 2017. In 2014, Roly was promoted as part of the Future Coastguard programme and became a Maritime Operations Commander, with the role of Deputy Head of Maritime Operations (International) and was tasked to engage with international groups, events and activities that HMCG was part of. He was involved in the North Atlantic CG Forum, the Anglo French Accident Tactical Group (AFATG), the ICAO-IMO SAR Joint Working Group, and IMO NavComSAR (NCSR). In 2017 Roly was asked to take over the leadership and direction of HMCGs Standards Team.

This team is responsible for conducting operational audits of the Coastguard in the UK, and reporting results to senior management. He is a qualified ISO 9001-2015 standard, auditor and has a strong interest in, and some good knowledge of, the Human Element and Human Factors and is keen too see the use of these concepts and models in RCC environments as well as rescue operations. Roly finally completed his career in HCMG in February 2023. In April 2023 he was contacted and asked if he would like to consider joining the IMRF as its part-time IMO representative, a role which he was more than happy to take on as it brought him back into contact with the activities of the ICAO-IMO SAR Joint Working Group and IMO NSCR, a part of his Coastguard work which he gained most satisfaction from. Roly is a qualified private aircraft pilot (Microlight/Ultralight (single engine, landplane)), since 2004, and flies as often as possible.