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My Updates
Fowey RNLI saving lives at sea for 165 years
Thursday 9th May
Fowey RNLI is celebrating 165 years of saving lives at sea in 2024.
Originally based in Polkerris,
the station moved to Fowey Town Quay in the 1920s and to its
current location in the mid 1990s.
The founding of the station at
Polkerris came about following a tragic wreck on May 6 1856 in which
three men died when their vessel, the schooner Endeavour, was wrecked near Gribben Head in an easterly gale. When the report of
the shipwreck was given to local landowner, William Rashleigh, he
wrote to the RNLI asking for a lifeboat to be supplied. With strong
local support, the RNLI agreed that a station should be established.
Fowey harbour
entrance was such that the original pulling and sailing lifeboats could not get
to sea during onshore gales. So the village of Polkerris was chosen as the site of the new lifeboat station, which opened in 1859.
The
advent of motorised lifeboats and the need for a more sheltered
mooring prompted the decision to move the lifeboat station to Fowey in 1922. The original
station at Polkerris is now a restaurant.
Today Fowey has two lifeboats, the all-weather Trent class and the inshore D class. The Trent is designed to go out in the worst of weather, and so long as the Coxswain and the Launch Authority deem it appropriate then they go out. Fowey’s all-weather boat is named The Maurice and Joyce Hardy and is capable of 25 knots (29mph) and can cover 250 nautical miles at full speed on its two 2,000 ltr fuel tanks. She is also capable of self-righting if capsized in bad weather.
Fowey’s inshore Lifeboat is an inflatable boat, also capable of 25 knots and has an endurance of
three hours. She can carry 8 people including her three crew and has
a busy time responding to rescues requiring access to shallow water
or other areas where the Trent can’t go.
Fowey has its own local
team of volunteers. In addition to the 32 volunteer crew members,
they have support from lots of volunteers in the local community who
help raise funds, run the local shop and keep the station running.
The Fowey lifeboat station is very much part of the local community.
You can visit the station at Passage Street, Fowey, PL23 1DE. The all-weather lifeboat is open for tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays during the summer months (weather and operations permitting). You can also look around the boat house, see the inshore boat and find out about recent shouts.
Next door to the station is the RNLI shop, which is open every day selling a range of RNLI merchandise.
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In memory of Avis Joyce Martin of Par, St Austell, Cornwall. Donation for (Fowey Branch RNLI)