Lerwick Lifeboat Station

Lerwick Lifeboat Station is based in Lerwick, the main town and port of Shetland, on the east coast of the Mainland. Its all-weather lifeboat covers some of the roughest seas around Britain, from the North Sea fishing grounds to the cliffs and sounds of the Shetland coast, and its crews have earned more gallantry medals than almost any other station in Scotland.

Founding the station

In March 1930, after the Board of Trade improved communications with Shetland, the RNLI decided to open a lifeboat station at Lerwick. Only eight days later the trawler Ben Doran was wrecked off Shetland with the loss of all nine crew. The nearest lifeboat was at Stromness, and its crew spent 55 hours on a journey of 360 miles, in vain. The tragedy made clear how badly a Shetland lifeboat was needed.

The station opened on 17 July 1930 with the arrival of a 51-foot Barnett-class lifeboat, one of the most powerful types of the day. Its first rescues came on consecutive days in February 1931. After towing a Faroese ketch into harbour, the crew set out again for the steamer Everline of Riga, which had lost her propeller 100 miles west of Shetland. After a night at Symbister, they reached her the next morning, and when the master decided to abandon ship, all 26 men were taken off by the lifeboat. In June 1932, before a crowd of more than 3,000, the boat was named Lady Jane and Martha Ryland.

Medals and rescues

On 16 October 1958 the Soviet trawler Urbe sank near the Holm of Skaw, off Unst. The new lifeboat Claude Cecil Staniforth made a 50-mile journey through a storm, picking up a local pilot, Andrew Mouat, at Baltasound. In very difficult conditions, with one propeller fouled, the crew rescued the only three survivors. Coxswain John Sales received the RNLI Silver Medal and Mr Mouat the Bronze.

The Arun-class lifeboat Soldian, which served from 1978, was launched 245 times in nineteen years and rescued 260 people. Her crews won five gallantry medals, four of them awarded to Coxswain Hewitt Clark.

The Green Lily

Clark’s greatest service came on 19 November 1997. In a storm force 11 gale that had cancelled all ferries, the cargo ship Green Lily, with 15 crew, lost power and was driven towards the cliffs of Bressay. The towline from a tug parted, and the new Severn-class lifeboat Michael and Jane Vernon, only four months on station, was called out with the coastguard helicopter from Sumburgh. With the ship rolling too heavily for the helicopter, Clark brought the lifeboat alongside again and again, and five men were taken off before the helicopter lifted the rest. Clark was awarded the RNLI Gold Medal, its highest honour.

The station today

Michael and Jane Vernon is still the station’s lifeboat, only the fourth to have served at Lerwick. In 2005 a new shore facility was opened at the Old Tolbooth on the waterfront. The crew are volunteers, on call day and night throughout the year.

Visiting

The lifeboat is berthed in Lerwick’s harbour, close to the town centre and Commercial Street, and is often seen from the waterfront. The Shetland Museum, a short walk along the harbour, tells more of the islands’ long relationship with the sea.