Qualla: Fleetwood Lifeboat Station

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Wade, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three medal rescues in a single year. That was the record set by John Fox, Coxswain, and Captain Edward Frodsham Noel K. Wasey, RN, of HM Coastguard in 1860 - the lifeboat's very first year on station at Fleetwood. On 22 January a steam-tug towed the boat over four miles to the Ann Mitchell, and on the seventh attempt the single survivor was lifted clear. Fox and Wasey were each awarded the RNLI Silver Medal. Over the next nine months Wasey earned two more clasps to his medal - for saving four men on 19 February, then fifteen men and the pilot on 20 October. A captain does not collect three Silver Medals in twelve months unless his coastline is brutally hard on ships.

Image: Robert Wade | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: A Letter That Saved Lives

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stevew2022, CC BY-SA 3.0. It started with a letter. In November 1858 Captain Wasey wrote to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution requesting a boat for Fleetwood, a busy port at the north end of the Fylde where the River Wyre meets Morecambe Bay. The RNLI agreed. A boathouse was built opposite the North...

Image: Stevew2022 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: Four Boathouses and a Storm

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tom Richardson, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original 1858 boathouse was almost washed away in a storm of 1863, so a new brick-built one went up at Pharos Place next to the Pharos Lighthouse for £161 17s 10d. It is now a private house. Col. William Blackburne's £900 gift funded a new boat in 1879, Child of Hale, with th...

Image: Tom Richardson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: The First Engine

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Lupin at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. When Fleetwood reopened in 1933, it had its first motor lifeboat - the 38-foot self-righting Sir Fitzroy Clayton, with a 35-horsepower engine giving 7 knots. She was named after Col. Sir Fitzroy Clayton, who had chaired the Institution from 1908 until his death in 1915. She had p...

Image: Lupin at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: Kenneth James Pierpoint

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fleetwood's current all-weather lifeboat is the 13-14 Kenneth James Pierpoint, ON 1321, a Shannon-class boat that arrived on station at 13:14 on 26 June 2016. She cost £2.2 million and is one of the most capable lifeboats in the world - water-jet driven for shallow-draft work, se...

Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fleetwood Lifeboat Station: Volunteers, Still

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit zergo512, BSD. Alongside the Shannon, Fleetwood operates a smaller inshore lifeboat, the Harbet (D-853), on station since 2021. Both crews are volunteers, as RNLI crews have been since the Institution was founded in 1824. They go out in weather most people will never voluntarily set foot in. Th...

Image: zergo512 | BSD