A conservation feature sponsored by Honda Marine
Join the crew of the Environmental Agency’s latest and finest ‘Fisheries Patrol’ vessel as she goes aboat her duties policing the waters during the dark winter months off the south west coast of England.

It was to be my first ever serious trip on a RIB – accompanying the Environment Agency’s fisheries protection inspector, Derek Clifton and his crew, Steve Foot, on board their new nine metre Ribtec ‘Nemesis’ from its base in Teignmouth docks on a run down to Salcombe marina and back on a winter’s day. Aboat 45 miles each way.

A cold, grey, blustery dawn was already giving way to a bright, calm, sunny Devonshire morning by the time I met Hugo in the dock car park at 9am and the sea was relatively flat. ‘Here, get into this’, he said, handing me an impressive all-in-one zip-up garment. ‘It’s exra large’ he added. With a glance at my waistline, but it fitted over my layers, if somewhat snugly and I waddled confidently behind him to meet Derek Clifton and his new boat.

And what a boat! Contrary to all my fears, it had a cosy cabin, with double glazing and central heating – just like home! Derek, Steve and Hugo talked enthusiastically about the technical design and performance features as I nodded knowledgeably and bagged the most comfortable seat. Derek eased us out of the harbour and over the tricky sandbars below The Ness, where two pods of dolphins had swum with us for several weeks last summer until noisy Londoners on wet bikes carved them up. He pointed Nemesis at Hope's Nose at the northern end of Torbay, and opened the throttles. The surge of power was impressive, and even at maximum throttle we could converse without shouting. Thanks to the hydraulic damping, there were none of the sledge-hammer blows up the spine that one has become accustomed to in the Fairline gin palace as it smashes its way through wave after shuddering wave at similar speeds. Admittedly, the sea was a lot flatter than we might have expected at this time of the year, but the ride was still more reminiscent of a car on a Devon road than of a tank on a Salisbury Plain assault course.

As we passed Tom Longs Beach beyond The Ness, we spotted a crabber working inshore: Derek pulled alongside, and they chatted for a while, all very friendly and low-key, on first­name terms, I noticed,. "They're a couple of local lads," Derek explained as we picked up speed, "good lads who know what they're doing. They're as interested in conserving stocks as we are, but we still like to let them to know we're around." A couple of miles further on he swung the helm over again: this time he had spotted a line of almost invisible floats in the water close to the beach. We pulled alongside, and he and Steve started pulling up the weighted lines one by one to make sure they adhered to regulations over minimum depth; they did, and were carefully fed back into the water.

No drama, no high-speed chase, but, as a direct result of fishery patrols like this, an illegal million-pound trade in salmon netting was completely stopped in the mid-eighties, by which time salmon stocks within West Country estuaries had reached an alarming all-time low. Surprisingly, Derek explained that it was the small boat operator rather than the factory ship that was the main offender. For example, below Hallsands, the dead hamlet that slipped into the ocean one stormy night while the men were out at sea fishing, fragile scallop beds flourish in the clean, clear waters. Organised teams of greedy divers had been visiting the site at weekends to fish them illegally and shift them in refrigerated vans up the M5 to their native Midland towns, where they sold them to unscrupulous restaurant and hotel owners who asked no questions except the price. They were caught and stopped just before the beds were stripped beyond renewal.

How did he decide which boat to stop and which to ignore? What clues was he looking for? "I know all the local lads," he explained, "in fact I'm a fisherman myself. If they were fishing illegally in nursery waters, or anywhere they shouldn't be, I'd stop them, of course, and they all know that. It's mainly foreign boats we're looking for, boats from outside the area fishing where they wouldn't normally be." His patrol included anti-gill-net policing and ensuring that the boats did not take undersized fish. There was a lot at stake. For example, the penalty for taking undersized sea bass was an exemplary £50,000 fine, plus the confiscation of the miscreant's vessel.

What happened if these criminals objected to losing their boat and £50,000 and refused to stop? "As an Environment Agency's fisheries protection officer I have the power to stop, search, seize and arrest, and all the back-up I need from larger vessels if needed. I haven't had to call up a frigate yet, though. Our main function is conservation of stocks and sea-life where the smaller inshore boats work. After an oil-spill we even pick oiled birds off the rocks or out of the sea and take them into Teignmouth for treatment as part of the job."

He explained that there are three agencies working together to protect the fish stocks: the Environment Agency (formerly the National Rivers Authority), for which he and Steve worked; the Devon Seas Fisheries Committee, funded by local councils; and MAFF, with overall Ministerial responsibility. Did this leave jurisdictional gaps that law­breakers crawled through? "No," Derek said, "I work under all three warrants, in fact all three agencies are cross­ warranted."

Did he work a regular beat with regular hours? "No, that wouldn't work. The bad lads would soon work it out and help themselves while I was off duty. And it wouldn't work if someone up in London set a schedule, for the same reason. I'm the officer on the spot, and it's up to me to set my own programme, sometimes days, sometimes nights, early or late, with no regular day off. It's a huge sea area to patrol, and we could do with a little more speed, to tell the truth."

We crossed Torbay to Berry Head, where shark come out to play in summer. Occasional messages squawked and printed out from the comfortingly-local Brixham coast­guard, We crossed the Dartmouth estuary guarded by its castle, and on past our favourite holiday places, Blackpool Sands, Slapton Ley, Torcross with its mile of steeply­ shelving pebble beach, the remains of Hallsands hamlet, and on to the lighthouse at Start Point. Here we turned right, if you know what I mean, and headed past Prawle Point for the Kingsbridge estuary into Salcombe.

Derek moored at the pontoon and we went ashore for lunch. As a travel journalist I get to write a lot about hotels and restaurants, from Istanbul to Rio de Janeiro (well, someone has to do it), but there is nothing to match grimly cheerless English catering at its worst. The four of us went into the nearest bar to the jetty, a normal, scruffy Devon pub, almost empty, and made our choices from the standard pub food on offer. The lady in charge haughtily told us that the two who wanted steaks would have to dine in "the restaurant" - a drab, customer­less room opening from the bar-while the other two would have to eat at tiny tables in the bar itself. She was implacable. Rules were rules. Hugo seethed, though in an urbane and gentlemanly way. As we left, an elderly gentleman whose body seemed to have moulded itself over the years into the shape of his customary settle, leaned across and whispered to Hugo, "The Fortescue. Better food. Friendlier people." We thanked him for his advice and the four of us had a very enjoyable pub lunch together. As we left afterwards, cheered and contented, the same kindly gent was sitting by the door of the Fortescue to give us a sly wink. It's always good to meet an expert who follows his own advice.

On the way back, I had an insight into just why RIBS are favoured by coastguards, lifeboatmen and other inshore professionals: Hugo needed some action shots of the Nemesis for these articles, so Derek inched the craft towards a series of jagged rocks lurking just beneath the surface, to maroon our brave editor on a tiny island. In response to Hugo's descriptive language and gestures, Derek turned his craft left, he turned it right, he moved it a foot this way, two foot that way you know how demand­ing photographers are - with never more than a couple of inches of surging spare water between us and the razor rocks. Hugo then jumped rock back onto the deck, and every­body was pleased. As an exhibition of seamanship by our coxswain, and manoeuvrability by Nemesis, that was as good as it gets.

And so for the final stonk back to Teignmouth, pausing in Torquay to fill both tanks with about a million gallons of fuel. More nets to check, more boats to intercept. Then home, warm, dry and elated - because it had been fun working with such consummate professionals - to a much relieved wife.

There are many facets to conservation, and it has a distinctly uneven press coverage. Greedy people after quick profits can portray the whole process as nannyish, intrusive, eroding our human rights. Those with even a passing knowledge of the incredibly ingenious designs that keeps myriads of species interacting viably in a sustainable ecosystem can only applaud people like Derek and Steve who do more than a fine professional job. They work with passionate commitment for the long ­term interests of us all, and of the beautiful earth and sea around us. One thing is certain: with Nemesis on station and Derek Clifton and Steve Foot on fishery patrol duty, the fish of south-west England can sleep safely in their spawning beds.

Paul Stevenson