As a maritime patrol aircraft, the earlier incarnations of Nimrod have been invaluable over the years in their search and rescue role. There is no substitute for a big jet aircraft that can get a thousand miles out into the Atlantic quickly and then loiter for hours, acting as on-scene commander for merchant ship rescue operations, dropping liferafts, searching for yachts reported in trouble, etc. Helicopters are too slow and too limited in range.
Hopefully we can ask the Americans or French to do the job for us but there must come a time when they say "Look, you are big boys now. This is your job. You straddle the Atlantic sealanes, you used to be a great maritime nation with the world's biggest navy, the world's biggest merchant fleet, the world's biggest shipbuilding industry, take some responsibility for the position you are in and get on with it."
We even had to call the Belgians in not so long ago to rescue some people trapped by the tide in Langdon Bay. We have a reciprocal arrangement with them if our thin scattering of helicopters are detained elsewhere. Our own SAR helicopter arrangements are to be privatised and the Canadians will in future provide this service around our shores. Here are a couple of photos of the Belgian chopper with blades within inches of the chalk cliffs, hope my old mate Mike Jackson will not mind me copying them here.
Full extraordinary set of photos on Dover Ferry Photos Forum (register if you have not done so):
http://www.doverferryphotosforums.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=426&p=2763&hilit=helicopter#p2763