Qualla: Largs Lifeboat Station

Largs Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 24 July 1983, a motor-boat capsized off Fairhaven on the east side of Great Cumbrae. Four people had been aboard. Two men were picked up by a passing yacht. A third was pulled from the water into a motor-boat, but did not survive. The fourth was a girl. She was still inside the upturned hull, breathing in an air pocket that was running out. The Largs lifeboat crewed by Arthur Hill and helmsman John Strachan arrived. What happened next is the reason Largs Lifeboat Station has the awards it has.

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Largs Lifeboat Station: The 1983 Rescue

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ian Rainey, CC BY-SA 2.0. Arthur Hill ducked under the upturned hull again and again. Each dive was a guess: would the air still be there, would the girl still be conscious, would Hill himself surface. After several attempts he found her and got her out, into the waiting lifeboat. She lived. The RNLI awar...

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Image: Ian Rainey | CC BY-SA 2.0

Largs Lifeboat Station: Why an Inshore Boat

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Martin, CC BY-SA 2.0. Through the winter of 1963, the RNLI ran trials of a new kind of rescue craft. Britain's seaside resorts were filling with sailors and waterskiers and pleasure craft, and the existing fleet of full-sized lifeboats took time to launch. Something faster was needed, smaller, that a ...

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Image: David Martin | CC BY-SA 2.0

Largs Lifeboat Station: Royal Openings and New Boats

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. An early rescue came when six men aboard a drilling pontoon off Hunterston were in trouble. The pontoon was moving violently in heavy seas; the lifeboat took all six off and got them with their service launch back to Hunterston Jetty. Helm John H. Harrison, Robert Watson, and Joh...

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Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Largs Lifeboat Station: Standing By

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gordon Hatton, CC BY-SA 2.0. The station sits at the junction of Greenock Road and Barfields in Largs, looking west over the Firth of Clyde toward Great Cumbrae. From its launching ramp the boat can reach Cumbrae's shores in minutes and the open water beyond it in not much longer. The Firth is a working sea:...

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Image: Gordon Hatton | CC BY-SA 2.0