“St Peter Port Lifeboat” launched to assist Yacht “Waton”

At 13:20 on Friday 15th May, 2015 Guernsey Coastguard received a Mayday call from the French yacht “Waton” off the SW coast of Sark and taking water, the Lifeboat  “Spirit of Guernsey” departed St Peter Port at 13:43 and found the casualty on the East coast of Sark at 14:04, with the local vessel Lady Helen standing by the vessel.

Spirit of Guernsey picking up two crew and a salvage pump from french yacht Waton 15-05-15 Pic by Tony Rive

The Lifeboat transferred a pump and crew to the yacht and after making the vessel safe towed the casualty back to St Peter Port arriving at 1555.

Second busiest year ever for the RNLI St. Peter Port lifeboat station

2014 was the second busiest year ever for the RNLI St. Peter Port lifeboat station.  The lifeboat was called out on service 38 times during the year, including calls on both 30th and 31st December.  The busiest year ever was in 1991 when the station lifeboat was called to assist on 43 occasions.

In addition to operational call-outs, the lifeboat crew were also on exercise afloat on a further 49 occasions.  The high number of exercises was largely associated with the need to completely re- familiarise the volunteer crew with characteristics of firstly the relief lifeboat ‘Daniel L Gibson’ and then the major changes following a million pound plus refit of the ‘Spirit of Guernsey’  which saw new MTU engines, and new electronics and navigation / search software systems fitted.

‘Spirit of Guernsey’ has been the St. Peter Port Station lifeboat since 1997.

The RNLI is funded entirely by voluntary contributions. At this time of year the crew would like to thank all Guernsey Lifeboat supporters for their continued help  and generosity

Peter Gill
Lifeboat Operations Manager
St. Peter Port lifeboat Station

Welcome

Welcome to the friends of the St Peter Port lifeboat website.

Please visit https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/lifeboat-stations/st-peter-port-lifeboat-station for the official website

The Guernsey lifeboat station is one of only four in the Channel Islands. Operating for over 200 years, the crews of the Guernsey lifeboats have been honoured with several awards for gallantry.

Spirit of Guernsey at speed – photo by Tony Rive

The Station has seen a variety of lifeboats over the years and the current lifeboat is the Severn class ‘Spirit of Guernsey’. The Island has always been proud to support the Lifeboat Station and crews; in 1973 a special appeal raised a considerable sum towards the cost of the Arun Class “Sir William Arnold”.

Twenty years later an appeal was launched to raise £1 million to support the building of “Spirit of Guernsey”. Thanks to the generosity of friends in Guernsey, Sark, Herm and further afield, the target was achieved within one year. The RNLI relies entirely on voluntary donations.

Following a six-month training and familiarisation period, July 2019 saw the introduction of a ‘B’ Class Atlantic 85 Inshore Rescue lifeboat – the Elizabeth and Margaret Milligan (B-889) on a two-year trial for evaluation.

Picture by Brian Green