The Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution (Dutch: Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij, abbreviated: KNRM) is the voluntary organization in the Netherlands tasked with saving lives at sea. For that purpose, it maintains 39 lifeboat stations along the Dutch coast of the North Sea and Wadden Sea and on the IJsselmeer. Its headquarters have been in IJmuiden since 1996.
The KNRM was created May 22, 1991 by merging the Koninklijke Noord- en Zuid-Hollandsche Redding-Maatschappij (founded November 11, 1824), called the Noord (North), and the Koninklijke Zuid-Hollandsche Maatschappij tot Redding van Schipbreukelingen (founded November 20, 1824), called the Zuid (South). Between 1824 and 2006, they answered 36358 distress calls and saved 79887 people out of distress situations. Yearly they have about 1700 distress calls with about 3500 people saved (2008).
The KNRM also operates the Dutch Radio Medical Service (a task taken over from the Dutch Red Cross on January 1, 1999) and provides medical advice by radio to about 900 ships each year.
Like the comparable Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which operates in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and German Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger, the KNRM is entirely financed by private donations.
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Similar organizations in other European countries