Rescue Afloat

Coastguards saved life not only with Life Saving Apparatus (LSA) but also by braving the seas in their own boats and as lifeboat crews. The story of their heroism has yet to be told.

Fishermen and pilots had always launched their boats to take crew from ships grounded on sandbanks and rocks. Liverpool was probably the first port to provide a 'lifeboat' for such rescues. Many inventors had demonstrated prototype 'unsinkable' boats, but a competition in 1790 led Henry Greathead to build the lifeboat 'Original' for South Shields, and then to supply boats of the same design to over twenty ports and harbours. The life saving effort was strongest where local organisations funded the boats and supported their volunteer crews. Not until 1824 was there a National Institution for Preservation of Life from Shipwreck to promote life saving coastwide. Success still depended heavily on local effort until, from the 1850s, improved organisation and fundraising enabled the renamed Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) to establish many new stations and gradually to take responsibility for previously independent lifeboats.

Coastguards feature in every element of the history of lifeboats. Records of RNLI bravery awards show them undertaking daring rescues in their own galleys or gigs which often demonstrated the need for a lifeboat station. Local commanders petitioned for new stations and advised on the best locations, spearheaded fundraising and became secretaries to local organisations. Coastguards frequently crewed and coxed both independent and RNLI lifeboats, particularly on unpopulated coasts.

When, in 1852, the RNLI's first standard design lifeboat was put through trials she was crewed by Coastguards. A year earlier the Coastguard commanders at Yarmouth, Harwich and Thames had tested Lamb & White lifeboats for work by the Revenue Cruisers. In the 1860s the Admiralty ordered worn out gigs and galleys to be replaced by these lifeboats. In the following decades Coastguards used their lifeboats for rescues. As late as 1897, when the RNLI operated nationwide, the Coastguard lifeboat gig joined seven other lifeboats for a fundraising day organised at Bridlington by the local Divisional Officer of Coastguards.

Yet life saving was not the primary objective of the Admiralty Coastguard and official enquiries concluded that a coastwide lifeboat service could best be achieved by the charitably funded RNLI. After 1923, when the Coastguard was specifically dedicated to life saving, rather than duplicate the role of others it began developing expertise and communications to co-ordinate every resource available for search and rescue in UK waters. Coastguards now supply lifeboat stations with rapid and appropriate call outs, and with accurate information and communications throughout rescue incidents.