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It looks like something James Bond might drive – or, more accurately, Bear Grylls. But rather than enabling secret missions or carrying millionaires, this innovative amphibious boat is helping RSPB wardens look after Britain’s only breeding colony of roseate terns.
The endangered birds nest on Coquet Island off the Northumberland coast each spring but seasonal wardens who manage the tiny island struggle to get on and off it because there is no safe mooring point or harbour at low tide. This means boats can only take people and kit to the island at high tide – often at inconvenient times of day or night – making life for the wardens, who live in the island’s lighthouse, a little complicated.
The RSPB area manager, David Morris, said he and colleagues “racked our brains for years” about how to more easily access the six-hectare (15-acre) island nature reserve, which is only a mile off the coast.
The answer arrived when Morris watched a Bear Grylls documentary and saw the amphibious Sealegs boat the adventurer uses to access his private island in Wales.
The vessel, custom built in New Zealand, cruises along like an ordinary motorboat at sea but as it approaches land, the pilot lowers the legs from the hull using hydraulics and it drives on to the beach on chunky wheels.
“There are very few Sealegs in Europe and its certainly the only one we are aware of in the UK used for a conservation purpose like this – most others are used for millionaires accessing their islands,” said Morris. “This is the answer to all our issues – a way to get it out of the water, keep it on the island and it can safely carry more passengers to match the growing demand for local people wanting to volunteer with us.”
Coquet Island is uninhabited and not open to visitors because 40,000 birds breed there, including puffins and common, Arctic and sandwich terns. Last year, a record 191 roseate tern chicks hatched on Coquet, a welcome bounce-back after two seasons during which bird flu decimated seabird populations along the north-east coast.
The boat is to be called Rosie, not only after the nickname for the roseate terns, which are on a conservation red-list for the UK, but because it was funded in part from a generous donation by an RSPB supporter called Rosie.
“When I heard about the need for a new boat to support the work of the team at Coquet Island to protect roseate terns, I was keen to help with the funding,” said Rosemary Warburg. “Like the birds, I am known as Rosie, so was delighted when it was suggested that the boat could be named after me. It seemed fitting and I’m very much looking forward to meeting my namesake and the team at Coquet.”
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For the site manager, Stephen Westerberg, the boat is a gamechanger. “Last year, I was mainly a taxi service, dropping wardens and volunteers on the island and then heading straight back to Amble harbour. Now I can stay on the island and help with all the work.
“When the wheels come down, you feel the boat hit the ground and the wheels start pulling you along and you slowly lift the engine up and out.”
Rosie the amphibious boat is cutting quite a dash among open-mouthed visitors and locals at Amble harbour. “We’re quite a spectacle at the moment because we’re new. There isn’t a boat in Amble like it,” said Westerberg. “People are saying all the time: ‘Are you James Bond?’”
