Qualla: Port St Mary Lifeboat Station

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finn Bjorklid, Public domain. In 1894, a Birmingham property developer named James Stevens left his estate to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The sum was fifty thousand pounds, enough at the time to buy twenty lifeboats. It remains the largest single donation the RNLI has ever received from one individual. The very first of those twenty boats came to Port St Mary on the Isle of Man in 1896, a thirty-foot pulling-and-sailing lifeboat named James Stevens No.1, costing 463 pounds, and over the next twenty-one years she launched twenty-two times and is credited with saving fifty-five lives. The station's history is, in essence, this kind of long chain of named gifts, named boats, and named lives saved. People who never saw the Isle of Man paid for the boats that pulled Manx people out of the Irish Sea.

Image: Finn Bjorklid | Public domain

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: How the Station Came to Be

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0. In April 1895 the Deputy Chief Inspector of Lifeboats submitted his report on the Isle of Man to the RNLI Committee of Management. A meeting on 13 June 1895 decided that Port Erin lifeboat station should close and a new station be established at Port St Mary instead. Port Erin in...

Image: Richard Hoare | CC BY-SA 2.0

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: From Oars to Engines

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N Chadwick, CC BY-SA 2.0. The RNLI's founder, Sir William Hillary, had argued for steam-powered lifeboats from the 1820s. It took over a hundred years for Port St Mary to get one. The first motor lifeboat, Sir Heath Harrison, arrived in 1936. By then the station had been pulling and sailing for forty year...

Image: N Chadwick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: The Gough Ritchie Lifeboats

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eirik Newth from Oslo, Oslo, CC BY 2.0. James and Ann Ritchie were keen seafarers and the family behind Heron and Brearley, the brewery that produces Okells, the Isle of Man's principal beer. In 1970, shortly before James' death, they funded a new lifeboat for Port St Mary. After James died, his widow Ann Ritchie (born...

Image: Eirik Newth from Oslo, Oslo | CC BY 2.0

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: The Night of 6 November 2021

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manx James, CC0. In the early hours of 6 November 2021, a yacht in trouble off the south coast of the island called for help. Her propellers had fouled and she was being driven toward the rocks. Both the Port St Mary all-weather lifeboat and the inshore boat launched into challenging conditions. ...

Image: Manx James | CC0

Port St Mary Lifeboat Station: Today and the New Boat

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Man vyi, Public domain. In spring 2025, the relief lifeboat 14-15 Henry Heys Duckworth (ON 1213) was placed on station, replacing the long-serving Gough Ritchie II. A small inshore lifeboat, Frank Martin (D-873), has been on station since 2023. Two boats, one harbour, an operating area that includes the...

Image: Man vyi | Public domain