Qualla: Troon Lifeboat Station

Troon Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Page, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 6 December 1940, with the war raging and the Belfast steamer Moyallon in serious trouble off the Ayrshire coast, the Troon lifeboat went out into a gale and a driving rain. The crew brought seven people back alive. Coxswain William McAuslane received a silver RNLI medal for it. Albert J Ferguson received bronze. The medals are physical objects, kept where such things are kept, but the meaning lives in the count: seven lives, on a night when most people would have stayed indoors. The Troon Lifeboat Station has been doing this kind of arithmetic since 1871.

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Image: Tony Page | CC BY-SA 2.0

Troon Lifeboat Station: How the Station Began

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lifeboat stations had already been established on the Ayrshire coast by 1859. The people of Troon, watching this and thinking about their own town's exposure to Atlantic weather, asked the Royal National Lifeboat Institution to give them one of their own. The RNLI agreed in 1871....

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Troon Lifeboat Station: The Three Medals

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three RNLI medals have come to Troon crews over the station's history. The first two were for the Moyallon rescue in 1940. The third went to coxswain-mechanic Ian Johnson, who took the lifeboat out on 12 September 1980 to rescue five people from a dredger in danger of breaking it...

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

Troon Lifeboat Station: The Boats That Have Served Here

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Otter, CC BY-SA 3.0. Each lifeboat carries a name, and most carry a story past their Troon service. The Watson-class motor lifeboat Sir David Richmond was the first motor lifeboat at Troon, in service from 1929 to 1955; when she was sold she became a fishing boat at Aberystwyth under the name Aber Gi...

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Image: Otter | CC BY-SA 3.0

Troon Lifeboat Station: What a Lifeboat Station Actually Is

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Billy McCrorie, CC BY-SA 2.0. It is easy to read RNLI history as a sequence of medals and boats, but the substance of a station is something else. It is the crew on call at the back of every Christmas dinner and every routine working morning, men and women whose phones can go off at any hour. It is the long q...

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Image: Billy McCrorie | CC BY-SA 2.0