Barra Island Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Moored afloat |
| Address | Castlebay, Isle of Barra, Outer Hebrides, HS9 5XD |
| Telephone | 01871 810307 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
From Castlebay at the southern end of the Isle of Barra, the station runs a Severn-class all-weather lifeboat into some of the most exposed waters in the British Isles, at the southern gateway to the Outer Hebrides. A lifeboat has served here since 1931.
For many years the only lifeboat in the Outer Hebrides was at Stornoway, far to the north. After a series of wrecks, the RNLI established a station at Castlebay on Barra in September 1931, at the opposite end of the islands.
In September 1943 Coxswain Murdo Sinclair won the Silver Medal for the rescue, in the relief lifeboat, of the last fifteen men from the 9,000-ton steamship Urlana, aground forty miles away at Idrigill Point on Skye.
The station is best remembered for the night of 18 November 1979, when both the Barra and Islay lifeboats capsized and self-righted in hurricane-force conditions answering the Danish coaster Lone Dania — the first time either class had capsized on service, and remarkably without loss of life. The station has run the Severn-class Edna Windsor since 1998.
