Newcastle to get new £1.5m lifeboat

Newcastle to get new £1.5m lifeboat

NEWCASTLE RNLI station will be among the first in Ireland to use one of the world’s most advanced lifeboats.

Before the end of the decade a Shannon class lifeboat — which travels nearly twice as fast as the traditional lifesaving vessels — will be based in Newcastle.

Named after the River Shannon, just three stations in the UK are currently using this latest model, which came into operation last year.

The announcement was made this week following the RNLI’s coastal review and is part of the institution’s five year plan for its stations.

Newcastle RNLI station, one of the oldest in Ireland, currently has two boats — an inshore D-class lifeboat and the more powerful all-weather Mersey class lifeboat, The Eleanor and Bryant Girling, which has been in service since 1993.

Based on a Camarc Pilot vessel design, with a fibre reinforced composite hull and powered by twin water jets, the Shannon has a top speed of 27 knots.

At a cost £1.5m it is expected significant fundraising will be required, along with a bigger boat house for Newcastle.

Kingsley Singer, lifeboat operations manager in Newcastle, said no date had been set for the new arrival but there were hopes it would be in place in around four years.

“Every four or five years the RNLI do a coastal review and they look at all aspects of the need for a lifeboat and type of lifeboat in the particular area,” he said.

“It was Newcastle’s turn last November for the review board. The crews are very proud in this station so we were anxious about what the board would recommend.

“The crews were delighted to find out that the decision was that all-weather lifeboating would continue to be run from Newcastle, and that when the existing Mersey class is retired in about four years, it will be replaced by the RNLI’s latest class of lifeboat.

“Apart from all the state-of-the-art electronics, the Shannon is nearly twice as fast, which will enable us to get to a casualty in essentially half the time.”

With a large area to cover — from Strangford Lough to Carlingford Lough — Mr. Singer said Newcastle station was kept busy through the year.

“The incidents for the all-weather boat go right throughout the year, mainly call-outs from fishing boats out of Kilkeel or Ardglass that have maybe got into difficulty,” he said.

“There’s usually around six or seven incidents a year. One of the last calls we had was a fishing boat that had lost power and was drifting towards rocks, so it was necessary for the all-weather boat to get a line to them and keep them safe.

“With weather forecasting being so sophisticated now, most boats know when to stay in port, but incidents do happen.”