Qualla: Salcombe Lifeboat Station

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rodw, Public domain. On the morning of 27 October 1916, the William and Emma launched from Salcombe to help a wrecked schooner over near Prawle Point. By the time her fifteen volunteer crew were heading home, the sea outside the harbour had risen. At the bar - the shallow sandbank that closes off the mouth of the Kingsbridge Estuary - the lifeboat tried to cross on a falling tide and was rolled bow over stern by a breaking wave. Of fifteen men, two survived. Thirteen lifeboatmen drowned within sight of their own village, watched from the cliffs by wives, mothers and children who could do nothing. The Salcombe RNLI station rebuilt, retrained, and was back on service the following year.

Image: Rodw | Public domain

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: The Bar at Salcombe

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first Salcombe lifeboat was placed at the village in 1869, the year after the schooner Gossamer was wrecked at Prawle Point with thirteen lives lost. The geography of this stretch of Devon coast is brutal. The Kingsbridge Estuary opens to the sea through a narrow gap guarded ...

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: 27 October 1916

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MilborneOne, CC BY-SA 3.0. The William and Emma had launched that morning to help the Western Lass, a Plymouth schooner driven onto the rocks at Prawle Point. By the time the lifeboat reached her, the Western Lass was empty - her crew already rescued from the cliffs by ropes - and the lifeboat turned for h...

Image: MilborneOne | CC BY-SA 3.0

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: After the Loss

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. The RNLI did what it always did: replaced the boat and the crew, kept the station open. A new lifeboat arrived. New volunteers came forward. In 1922 the station was moved to moorings nearer the town, the original boathouse turned into a store. A short closure proved a mistake, an...

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

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: Capsize, the Second Time

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 10 April 1983 the lifeboat Baltic Exchange went out in a force 9 gale to help a capsized dinghy in Bigbury Bay. The dinghy crew got off by helicopter. The lifeboat herself then rolled - the second capsize in Salcombe's history. This time technology meant something different. T...

Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Salcombe Lifeboat Station: Tamar at Union Street

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Downer, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the Salcombe station occupies a three-storey building on Union Street at the heart of the town, with a single-storey boathouse next door for the inshore lifeboat. Since 2008 the all-weather boat has been a Tamar class - 250 nautical mile range, twenty-five knots, a long way...

Image: Chris Downer | CC BY-SA 2.0