Lifesaving Lifeboat Anniversary: Saturday June 14th

The Staithes and Runswick RNLI volunteer lifeboat team are celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the re-opening of the lifeboat station at Staithes.

The Staithes and Runswick lifeboat crew and friends are holding an open day between 10am - 4pm on Saturday 14th June to mark the occasion and for the public to meet the crew and view the facilities. There will also be a blessing service at 2pm.

Since 1866 there has been an RNLI lifeboat stationed at Staithes or Runswick. For many years there was a lifeboat in both villages simultaneously. The lifeboat station at Staithes closed in 1938, owing to a lack of manpower but the station at Runswick was kept open. This remained the situation until 1978 when the population of Runswick was diminishing and the lifeboat was mainly being manned by men from Staithes.

Towards the end of 1976 discussions began concerning re-opening Staithes station with one of the RNLI’s new high speed ‘Atlantic 21’ class inshore lifeboats. The ‘Atlantic 21’ was a 21foot semi-rigid inflatable boat with two 50 horsepower outboard engines. The present lifeboat at Staithes is an ‘Atlantic 75’, the same design as the ‘Atlantic 21’ but a couple of feet longer and wider and fitted with two 70 horsepower outboard engines, giving a top speed of 33 knots.

On 21st January 1977 a relief fleet Atlantic 21 arrived at Staithes and began trials which lasted many months. The trials proved successful and the RNLI took the decision to re-open the station at Staithes and close the Runswick Bay station.

At the time the lifeboat at Runswick Bay was ‘The Royal Thames’, a 37 foot Oakley class lifeboat with a speed of just over 8 knots and classed as an offshore lifeboat. Although slow by today’s standards these were big solid boats which could withstand heavy seas and were capable of towing even the largest of fishing boats. Understandably, there was great concern amongst the fisherman along the coast and indeed some of the lifeboat men at the time about taking away such a boat to replace it with a smaller semi-rigid boat.

Cobles are working north and south of Whitby and Whitby lifeboat cannot look after the increasing coble fleet. In our opinion a rubber inflatable lifeboat will prove totally inadequate in winter. In winter time boats are taking such a great risk and a ‘rubber dinghy’ is not adequate – it’s a fine weather boat. How can it take a boat in tow, in winter, in bad weather?

— Quote taken from a report published in the Whitby Gazette in May 1978 and is made by the Whitby Coblemen’s Association

Despite the protests the station was to close and ‘The Royal Thames’ launched on 18th January 1978 on what would prove to be its last service call from Runswick Bay.  The trawler ‘Deepvale’ had ran aground at Kettleness but the crew managed to reach the shore before it broke up on the rocks.

On 12th April 1978 the Atlantic 21 ‘Lord Brotherton’ arrived at Staithes and was declared fully operational on the 25th April. It was decided to re-open the station as the ‘Staithes and Runswick Lifeboat Station’ and on Saturday 17th June a ceremony was held to name the lifeboat and officially re-open the facilities. On 30th June ‘The Royal Thames’ was withdrawn and the Runswick station closed.

The ‘Lord Brotherton’ served at Staithes until 1989 and was succeeded by the ‘Ellis Sinclair’. In 2002 the station received a new Atlantic 75 called ‘Pride of Leicester’. Since opening in 1978 the Staithes and Runswick lifeboat has launched on service 387 times, an average of 13 calls a year. They are credited with saving 73 lives and helping 169 others.

No one likes change and at the time no one hand any real experience of boats like the Atlantic class. One of the main concerns was that the smaller boat wouldn’t be able to tow like the ‘big boat’ at Runswick. We soon proved it could after towing a 38 foot cabin cruiser out of the surf in a near gale. We then began taking her north and handed her over to the old Teesmouth lifeboat.

— Stewart Porritt, who was a crew man on ‘The Royal Thames’ and then became one of the Helmsmen of the ‘Lord Brotherton

Over the years the Atlantic class lifeboats have proven their worth. They are versatile and fast, they can get close inshore but are still capable of towing quite large fishing boats and yachts. We don’t really think of it as an ‘inshore’ lifeboat, it holds enough fuel to steam 45 miles out to sea and back home again and can search for well over 3 hours if done at a moderate speed. We believe that the ‘Pride of Leicester’ is more than adequate for the job.

— Lee Jackson, a helmsman and press officer of Staithes Lifeboat

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