| Weston-super-Mare Lifeboat Station | |
| RNLI lifeboat station | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
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| County | North Somerset |
| Town | Weston-super-Mare |
| Location | Birnbeck Island, BS23 1AL
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| Founded | 1882 |
| Owner | Royal National Lifeboat Institution |
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Birnbeck Island
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The Weston-super-Mare lifeboat station is a lifeboat station at Weston-super-Mare in the English county of Somerset, operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It is located on Birnbeck Pier.
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The extreme tidal range in the Bristol Channel made it difficult to find a site from which a lifeboat could be easily launched at all states of the tide. In 1882 davits were installed on the pier which allowed the town's first Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) lifeboat to be launched like a ship's lifeboat into the water below, even at low tide.[1]
This lifeboat was only involved in two rescues, although one involved taking 40 passengers off the SS Welsh Prince which got into difficulties after leaving Birnbeck Pier on 22 September 1884. In 1889 it was replaced by a larger lifeboat for which was built a new lifeboat house with a 100 feet (30 m) slipway on the north east side of the island. The present lifeboat house was built on the south east side of the island in 1902 and has the longest lifeboat slipway in England, measuring 368 feet (112 m).
Due to the condition of the pier towards the end of the century an alternative launch site was tried in the River Axe at Uphill, and a new "boat house" was built nearer the pier at Anchor Head to serve as an RNLI fund-raising shop. Boats are now launched again at Birnbeck from trolleys moved up and down the old northern slipway by tractors.
Weston-super-Mare is the busiest RNLI station on the Bristol Channel. In 2010 it was called into action on 47 occasions, rescuing 27 people and also a dog which had fallen down a cliff. [2]
The first motored lifeboat in Somerset was stationed at Weston from 1933. The first inshore lifeboat here arrived in 1966 and since 1969 the service has been operated by a pair of these smaller boats, one D class and a larger rigid inflatable.[1] These are more suitable to the mudflats and rocky headlands of the Somerset coast than the larger all-weather boats. The two lifeboats (as at 2008) are:[3]
Earlier lifeboats have been:[1]
18-004 was the fist production member of the McLachlan class. It was displayed at the Earls Court Boat Show in 1970 prior to its arrival at Weston and is now retired to the Lifeboat Museum at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
The D class inshore "number 2" boats have been:
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