Qualla: St Mary's Lifeboat Station

St Mary's Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Atkin, CC BY-SA 2.0. Twenty-six medals for bravery hang in the records of a single lifeboat station: one gold, nine silver, sixteen bronze. The most recent was earned on 29 October 2003, when Coxswain Andrew Howells and crew members Mark Bromham and Philip Roberts rescued an injured man from a yacht somewhere in the dark waters off the Isles of Scilly. The station at St Mary's Harbour has been doing this work since 1837, with one gap between 1855 and 1874 when funding collapsed and the boathouse stood empty. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution still operates the station today, and the boat now lives at her mooring rather than the boathouse - but the calls still come in, and the crews still go out, into some of the most dangerous water in the British Isles.

Image: Tony Atkin | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Mary's Lifeboat Station: From Pulling Boats to Steam

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Rostron, CC BY-SA 2.0. When the first St Mary's lifeboat went into service in 1837, she was a pulling and sailing boat - oars on a heavy sea, sail when wind allowed, a hand-cranked baler when the swamp came over the gunwale. The station closed in 1855 and reopened in 1874 with a new boathouse built for...

Image: John Rostron | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Mary's Lifeboat Station: The Gold Medal and the Long Atlantic

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Burmesedays, CC BY-SA 3.0. St Mary's lifeboatmen have earned twenty-six RNLI medals for bravery - one gold, nine silver, sixteen bronze. The gold is the highest peacetime honour the RNLI awards. These medals are not casually given. They mark services where crews put themselves between death and someone els...

Image: Burmesedays | CC BY-SA 3.0

St Mary's Lifeboat Station: The Robert Edgar and the Modern Boat

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Downer, CC BY-SA 2.0. Since the arrival of the Robert Edgar in 1981, the St Mary's lifeboat has been kept at her mooring in the harbour rather than hauled into the boathouse between calls. Modern Severn and Tamar class boats are too large and too heavy for the old slipway, and a moored boat can be at ...

Image: Chris Downer | CC BY-SA 2.0

St Mary's Lifeboat Station: October 2003

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The most recent bravery medals at St Mary's were awarded for a service carried out on 29 October 2003. A man on a yacht had been seriously injured. Coxswain Andrew Howells, crew members Mark Bromham and Philip Roberts, and the rest of the lifeboat crew brought him off. The RNLI d...

Image: Public domain