New meets old at Redcar RNLI

The volunteer RNLI crew was at sea familiarising itself with new navigation and communications equipment fitted to the station's Atlantic 85 class lifeboat during a three month overhaul at the RNLI's Inshore Lifeboat Centre on the Isle of Wight.

Helmsman Cameron Bond explains: 'We'd launched to train on the new navigation kit our lifeboat has now, and we spotted what looked like an old lifeboat on the horizon.

'We streamed over to it and we found it was an old Oakley class lifeboat. The crew told us it was built in 1969. It was used by the RNLI until 1987 when it was taken out of service.

'By our standards, although she's big, her equipment would have been very basic compared to what lifeboats carry now.

'They had just bought her and were taking her to a boatyard further up the coast to start a restoration project.'

Cameron Bond added: 'It was making pretty good speed really, probably eight or nine knots, considering how old it was. They were heading for Hartlepool for lunch before they carried on up the coast.'

The 48-foot (14.8m) wooden-hulled Oakley class lifeboat, named 'Charles Henry', began its service in 1969 at Selsey, West Sussex and at Baltimore, County Cork before being retired from active service in 1987. It has been in private hands since. The Oakley class lifeboats were named after Richard Oakley, the RNLI naval architect who designed them in the 1950s and 1960s.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Attached video grabs show the Redcar RNLI crew meeting the former RNLI lifeboat Charles Henry at Redcar. Credit RNLI Redcar

Redcar lifeboat station has been operating since 1802

Redcar currently operates a B-class lifeboat named Leicester Challenge III, paid for by the people of Leicester, and an IB1-class lifeboat named Eileen May Loach-Thomas, paid from the legacy of the late Nicolas Thomas of Shropshire

For more news, information and images go to www.redcarlifeboat.org.uk

Find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/redcarrnli

Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/RedcarRNLI

RNLI media contacts:

For more information please contact Dave Cocks, RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager on 07894 558 483 the RNLI Press Office on 01202 336789; pressoffice@rnli.org.uk

Key facts about the RNLI

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that saves lives at sea. Our volunteers provide a 24-hour search and rescue service in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 238 lifeboat stations, including four along the River Thames and inland lifeboat stations at Loch Ness, Lough Derg, Enniskillen and Lough Ree. Additionally the RNLI has more than 1,000 lifeguards on over 240 beaches around the UK and operates a specialist flood rescue team, which can respond anywhere across the UK and Ireland when inland flooding puts lives at risk.

The RNLI relies on public donations and legacies to maintain its rescue service. As a charity it is separate from, but works alongside, government-controlled and funded coastguard services. Since the RNLI was founded in 1824 our lifeboat crews and lifeguards have saved at least 140,000 lives. Volunteers make up 95% of the charity, including 4,600 volunteer lifeboat crew members and 3,000 volunteer shore crew. Additionally, tens of thousands of other dedicated volunteers raise funds and awareness, give safety advice, and help in our museums, shops and offices.

Learn more about the RNLI

For more information please visit the RNLI website or Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. News releases, videos and photos are available on the News Centre.

Contacting the RNLI - public enquiries

Members of the public may contact the RNLI on 0300 300 9990 or by email.

 

The RNLI is a charity registered in England and Wales (209603) and Scotland (SC037736). Charity number 20003326 in the Republic of Ireland