RNLI at 200: ‘We do things without prejudice. Our mission is to save lives and save everyone’

As a year of RNLI bicentenary celebrations draws to a close, the role of the charity in saving lives at sea remains as important as ever.

During the early evening of Sunday 10 October 1822, the revenue cutter Vigilant weighed anchor to evade a heavy sea being driven into Douglas Bay on the Isle of Man. Other ships sheltering in the roads were also preparing to leave. In the process of sailing away, a heavy laden Irish sloop bore off and ran foul of Vigilant, springing her bowsprit.

Entangled and prevented from shooting ahead, the Vigilant’s anchors broke free and she drifted astern until she tailed on St Mary’s Rock. Here, the rudder unshipped and the cutter became unmanageable. To prevent her from being forced even harder on to the rocks, the captain ordered the mast to be cut away.

Ashore, a crowd was watching this catastrophe unfold. Among them was Sir William Hillary. Hillary had inherited a family fortune and subsequently lost much of it, and had settled on the Isle of Man to avoid bankruptcy. Raised as a Quaker, he had strong views about duty to others and when he saw the peril the crew of Vigilant were in, he did not hesitate to join a group in rowing out to help warp the cutter off the rocks.

Boatmen from other ships at anchor went out to help the crew of the similarly stricken sloop, Merchant. The brig Two Sisters, also caught in the same storm, lost two crew on the Calf of Man despite all rescuers’ efforts.

Afterwards, Sir William made donations to ease the hardships of the shipwrecked crews, and disbursed rewards to those who had ventured out to help. The perils and hardships he had seen made a profound impression on him and he puzzled about how best to help those in danger at sea.

Shipwrecks were devastatingly commonplace, not only when coasting or making landfall, but sometimes, as on the Isle of Man in 1822, when ostensibly safe in port. The difficulties of reliable position-fixing and bad weather are the reasons we usually think of today, but defective construction, lack of repair, excessive loading, inadequate equipment, lack of harbours of refuge and incompetent masters (and drunken officers and men) were all leading causes.

Whatever the reasons, Britain’s complete reliance on sea trade and the scale of the merchant fleet made it a bigger tragedy here than in most other countries. It says something that there is no definitive tally of the number of ships wrecked round our coasts. A recent study by the University of Plymouth estimates the historic total at 50,000.

The associated loss of life over centuries is shocking; it scarred every coastal town and village dependent on coastal trade or fishing. Sir William Hillary saw that a nationwide organisation was called for. Rescue crews already existed in many locations: Sussex, Hampshire, Cornwall, Norfolk, Suffolk, Pembrokeshire, five boats in Yorkshire, two in Scotland and three based in Ireland. They relied, however, on disparate crews and random benefactors.

Sir William wrote to King George IV, proposing a co-ordinated service to preserve lives from shipwreck ‘worthy of Great Britain,’ he wrote, ‘important to humanity, and beneficial to the naval and commercial interests of the United Empire.’ The priorities, in his view, were: firstly saving lives, then to assist crews in distress, to preserve vessels and property – and prevent plundering – and to support shipwreck victims and reward rescuers.

A vital part of Sir William’s vision, just as pertinent today, was that ‘the people of vessels of every nation, whether in peace or war [are] to be equally objects of this institution’.

The first meetings of the great and good – nobility, gentry, bankers, Navy men, merchants, traders and others, chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury – were held in London in February and March 1824. The National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was formed.

By the end of the first year, local associations had been established at locations around the country. Donations and legacies totalled a very healthy £9,7056 (to put that in perspective £100 was more than most skilled tradesmen earned in a year). Roughly a third of that was allocated to the commissioning of lifeboats and ‘apparatus’ such as rocket line launchers and other equipment for making contact with vessels in distress.

Lifeboats were set up at Dungeness, Newhaven, Brighton, Teignmouth, Penzance, Bideford, Boulder, Bridlington, Boston Deeps and the Isle of Man, and there were to be two stations in Scotland and two in Ireland, crewed by experienced seafarers with local knowledge. To these could be added existing lifeboat stations, and more
when funds allowed.

At the end of that first year, the annual report listed 124 people who had been saved from shipwreck, as well as the complete crews of three ships. By the 1850s the Institution’s work was significantly overlapping with that of the more recently founded Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Benevolent Society.

There were differences, most notably the SFNBS restricted relief to what it deemed to be deserving people, and concerned itself with the moral and spiritual improvement of seamen. In the 1850s the Board of Trade urged the two bodies to consolidate aims, so the name was changed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the RNLI continued to rescue all, ‘deserving’ or not.

Article continues below…

Designing the lifeboats

There was a continual quest for the most seaworthy lifeboat to protect crew. In 1785, a London coachbuilder, Lionel Lukin, had designed the world’s first unsinkable lifeboat, based on a Norwegian yawl but with an air pocket incorporated in watertight bulkheads and buoyant gunwales. There were numerous other later contenders. Henry Greathead’s design of 1790 could be rowed by a crew of 12 and was cased in cork; over 30 of these went into service.

Another design by George Palmer, a former Navy officer and MP, resembled a double-ended whaling boat that could be rowed or sailed. It was used at scores of locations around the coast and remained in service until 1854, when it was replaced by the ‘self-righting’ boat based on an original design by James Beeching.

elusive boat design

Lifeboat crews continued to lose lives during rescues, and the designs remained controversial. By 1900, the RNLI had 303 lifeboats, mainly self-righting, and two steam lifeboats that used water jets. It was decided that a sturdy, seaworthy lifeboat that could be quickly launched was as important as being self-righting, and George Watson was appointed as naval architect to produce one.

He gave his name to a series of Watson-class lifeboats that ran until 1955, spanning the move away from pulling and sailing vessels to engine power. Perhaps the best known, because it falls within memory for many of us, is the 47ft Watson lifeboat introduced in 1955 and in service until the 1990s. This was first to have an enclosed wheelhouse and were the last to be built in wood– unusually, the mahogany and oak hull was built with a diagonal ‘X’ lap double skin.

Today’s fleet includes the ultra-capable Shannon and Severn all-weather self-righting lifeboats. The Severn, introduced almost 30 years ago, has a 250-mile range at 25 knots, while the newer Shannon class has a similar range and speed but is powered by water jets.

Just as important are the B and D class in-shore lifeboats. These were first introduced in the 1960s when leisure watersports were booming and people were getting into trouble close to shore in shallower water. Today over half of all lifeboat stations have in-shore lifeboats.

The importance of lifeboats in peace or wartime (as Sir William Hillary had envisaged) was demonstrated during the Second World War. The single biggest operation was the Dunkirk evacuations in May 1940, when 19 RNLI lifeboats from stations along the south and east coasts brought over 600 men off the beaches.

Two terrible events in the 1970s and 1980s etched the role of the RNLI in modern consciousness. In August 1979, the 303 yachts competing in the Fastnet Race were hit by a rapidly intensifying Force 10 storm in the Celtic Sea. Over half the fleet experienced knockdowns or capsizes, 24 yachts were abandoned and 15 crew died.

A huge rescue operation involving Royal Navy and RAF helicopters and search aircraft, and RNLI crews from Devon, Cornwall and Cork – 4,000 people in all – joined rescue efforts. It was (and is to this day) the largest number of lifeboats to ever be involved in a single rescue.

In December 1981, the Penlee lifeboat crew put to sea in the Watson Class lifeboat Solomon Browne in hurricane strength winds to reach the coaster Union Star. Crippled by contaminated fuel and engineless, it was drifting towards the coast of Cornwall.

The Penlee crew managed to come alongside to take four of the eight crew aboard, and returned to attempt to rescue the rest. Shortly afterwards, radio contact with the lifeboat was lost and its lights vanished. By daybreak the coaster had fetched up on the rocks and debris from the lifeboat was starting to wash ashore. All eight of the Penlee crew died.

A dangerous task

Despite so many technological advances, saving lives at sea can still be a dangerous task for volunteers. Every year lifeboat crews carry out rescues requiring great courage and skill. The BBC series Saving Lives at Sea has highlighted this, as does the crews’ own video footage posted on the RNLI’s social channels.

Seafaring may be less hazardous, but people get into difficulties in the water in different ways. The scope of the RNLI has broadened to encompass lifeguards to rescue people up to 300m from shore. There are 239 lifeguarded beaches, and last year lifeguards saved an estimated 86 lives.

A key aim for the RNLI is education about water safety. Water safety advice is given in schools and to youth groups, mostly by volunteer local ambassadors. Sea safety programmes are undertaken elsewhere in the world too, funded by targeted donations or overseas aid budgets. For example, the RNLI has provided expertise to the government of Bangladesh and given more than 9,000 children survival swimming lessons.

In Tanzania, it has worked with a local partner to address the high number of drownings in fishing communities around Lake Victoria.

The RNLI investigates technology that could support rescues; last year it trialled an emergency response drone to help spot people in the water, and an inflatable staircase that recovers multiple casualties in minutes. But the backbone of the service remains volunteer crew operating on the lifeboats.

Its work resonates deeply with the public. Angela Rook, associate director of the RNLI, believes that is primarily down to the breadth of volunteers, around 23,000 in all. ‘Simply put, volunteering is the lifeblood of the RNLI. It personifies our values,’ she says, ‘the community fundraisers, shop volunteers and lifeboat crew. People truly respect the ethos of going the extra mile to help others and volunteers themselves bring a network of many skills and talents.’

Like other UK charities, the RNLI has a small number of vocal critics who, for their own agendas, would dearly like to politicise its work. Its involvement in rescuing migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has provoked condemnation from some commentators. Every time there is a brouhaha, however, the RNLI sees a rise in donations.

Angela Rook says: ‘We do things without prejudice. If we are tasked by HM Coastguard, we will bring people safely to shore and hand over to authorities. Our mission is to save lives and save everyone.’

Despite far-reaching changes in the ways we venture to sea during the last two centuries, what is striking about the work of the RNLI is how similar its scope is to the remit imagined by Sir William Hillary and the founding committees in 1824. The RNLI was always intended to throw a ring of safety around our coasts, and it still does. The selflessness of its work is deeply embedded in the consciousness of a maritime nation, and for that every seafarer can be grateful.

RNLI: A brief timeline

1824: RNLI founded and the first ever Gold Medal awarded to Charles Freemantle, RN, for swimming out to a stranded yacht off the coast of Dorset

1838: Lighthouse keeper’s daughter Grace Darling became a national heroine for risking her life by rowing out in a storm to help the stranded survivors of the wrecked steamship Forfarshire. It captured the public’s imagination and focussed attention on the need for rescue.

1886: In December that year, 27 crew from the Southport and Lytham, St Anne’s lifeboats died trying to rescue crew from a barque that had run aground on the sandbanks in the Ribble Estuary. It was the worst loss of crew in a single incident in RNLI history. The appeal that followed raised £10,000 in two weeks and inspired the first recorded charity street collection.

1907: The rescue of 456 people from the steamship Suevic, which hit a reef near the Lizard in dense fog still holds the RNLI’s record for greatest number of lives saved.

1922: The Irish Free State was established. RNLI volunteers and lifeboat stations in existence round the coast continued to operate under the same umbrella as before.

1936: The introduction of a motor lifeboat at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk marked the last of the lifeboats pulled by horses.

1939-1945: During the war, RNLI crews rescued over 6,000 people, including hundreds during Operation Dynamo at Dunkirk.

1972: The first rigid inflatable boat, the B Class Atlantic 21, was introduced for rescues closer to shore.

1996: The Severn Class lifeboat was launched – a self-righting all-weather boat capable of achieving 25 knots.

2001: RNLI lifeguards start patrolling busy beaches where incidents are common.

2013: The in-house conceived and designed 25-knot Shannon class is introduced.

2015: The All-Weather Lifeboat Centre opens in Poole, bringing together construction, repair and maintenance under one roof for the first time.

Enjoyed reading this?

A subscription to Yachting Monthly magazine costs around 40% less than the cover price, so you can save money compared to buying single issues.

Print and digital editions are available through Magazines Direct – where you can also find the latest deals.

YM is packed with information to help you get the most from your time on the water.

• • • Take your seamanship to the next level with tips, advice and skills from our experts
    • Impartial in-depth reviews of the latest yachts and equipment
    • Cruising guides to help you reach those dream destinations

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post RNLI at 200: ‘We do things without prejudice. Our mission is to save lives and save everyone’ appeared first on Yachting Monthly.