The boat rocks and the waves come crashing in. Becky is getting slammed against the hull as she attaches a sling around a fellow lifeboat recruit. She gives the crew on board the thumbs up and they pull the recruit out of the water.
Becky climbs the scramble net back onto the deck. It's the first time she's led a test rescue and from the flybridge, her father, Ian Cannon, watches on with pride. In this family, saving lives has become a tradition.
Becky Cannon at the RNLI lifeboat station in Ramsgate
At 17, Becky Cannon is one of the RNLI's youngest recruits. Joining in April of this year, she's already been on three call-outs and is eager for more. Becky represents the third generation of her family to volunteer at the RNLI station in Ramsgate where she lives. Whilst her father and grandfather's tales of bravery are without question, it's Becky's Great Uncle that she thinks of when she gets a call out.
"Every time we get a call I think about what it must've felt like... to deal with his fear the way he did," she says.
Becky's Great Uncle, Alf Moody, sailed the channel to save lives in the evacuation at Dunkirk, where over 400,000 Allied soldiers were stranded and under fire from German bullets
Alf was one of the ordinary men that took up Winston Churchill's call for every available man and vessel to assist the Navy in what proved to be one of Britain's most sombre moments in military history. These men and their boats earned the title of 'the little ships' and are symbols of what is now known as the Dunkirk Spirit - ordinary men who took on an extraordinary challenge. It's that spirit that inspires Becky even now.
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"I don't think there's anyone who's not going to be a bit scared when they go towards bombs... and guns and all sorts. But I reckon the adrenaline gets rid of all that." She says as she looks out over the water towards the shoreline.
"You gotta get on with it... you've got to do it."
Alf Moody (second from the left) with the lifeboat crew
As a lifeboatman with the local RNLI station in Ramsgate, Alf was in a pub playing pool when the call came. He went from sipping his pint to saying goodbye to his wife.
Alf and his fellow crew members ferried soldiers from the beach at Dunkirk to ships further out to sea. They used wherries - small row boats - to pick up soldiers from the beach and they didn't stop retrieving men until all their wherries were broken. When they sailed back, they continued to ferry soldiers from the ships out to sea so that those vessels could return to the beaches and save more men.
"It's incredible what he did," she says as we return to shore from the test exercise. The crew remove their suits and hang their helmets up. Today was a drill, but at any moment they could be called to a situation where someone's life is in their hands.
Becky reflects after a successful test rescue
As Becky sips a well-deserved coffee, I ask her if she's ever felt scared putting on her suit and heading out to a rescue.
"I haven't been in a situation where I've been scared at all... not yet. You never know what could happen."
The world's a different place in 2017 to the one which exposed her Great Uncle to such horror, but it's clear that here in Ramsgate lifeboat station, that same Dunkirk Spirit lives on.
Featured Image Credit: Becky (left) and her Great Uncle Alf Moody (far right)