The fourth of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s (RNLI) Shannon class lifeboats to go on service in Scotland arrived at her new home in Eyemouth on Sunday 2 December. The new lifeboat is named Helen Hastings after the donor whose legacy funded the cost of building her.
The lifeboat was built at the RNLI’s All-Weather Lifeboat Centre in Poole and was completed in September 2018. She left the RNLI’s Headquarters at Poole on Wednesday 28 November with some of her crew on board, as well as an RNLI trainer, and headed east and then north, stopping overnight at Dover, Lowestoft, Scarborough and Amble.
The boat’s arrival at Eyemouth was an emotional occasion for the crew, with Coxswain Andrew Jamieson at the helm as the new Shannon entered the narrow harbour entrance for the first time, led in by the boat Helen Hastings will replace, the 14m Trent Barclaycard Crusader. Hundreds of local people turned out for the event, lining the harbour walls and cheering as the boat reached her new home.
Lifeboats from neighbouring stations were also on hand to escort the new lifeboat home. The 14m Trent John Neville Taylor from Dunbar and 12m Mersey Joy and Charles Beeby from Berwick-upon-Tweed formed part of the small flotilla of rescue craft, which was completed by the St Abbs independent lifeboat Thomas Tunnock. Together with Eyemouth’s inshore lifeboat D-745, there were no fewer than six lifeboats in the harbour in the afternoon.
