Dart Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Aquadock |
| Address | Sandquay Road, Dartmouth, Devon, TQ6 9PH |
| Telephone | 01803 839224 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the River Dart at Dartmouth, a deep natural harbour on the south Devon coast, Dart runs an Atlantic 85 and a D-class from a berth in the harbour. An early lifeboat served the town from 1878 but was withdrawn in 1896; after a gap of more than a century the station reopened in 2007, returning a lifeboat to one of the South West’s busiest sailing rivers.
The RNLI approved a station for Dartmouth in 1876, and a lifeboat — the Maud Hargreaves — was inaugurated on 23 October 1878. In summer she was kept at Sand Quay; in winter she lay afloat in Warfleet Creek, ready to respond more quickly to ships in distress. It proved difficult for the rowing lifeboat to clear the estuary against an onshore wind without a tug, and in eighteen years she launched only three times and assisted just one vessel.
The station was closed in 1896. For more than a century Dartmouth had no lifeboat of its own, the area covered by motor lifeboats at Salcombe, Brixham and Plymouth. Following a local proposal in 2004, the RNLI agreed to return a lifeboat to the town.
Dart Lifeboat Station was formally re-established in 2007, with a D-class inshore lifeboat operating from Coronation Park. After a trial period an Atlantic 85 was added as a permanent search-and-rescue asset in 2020, berthed on an aqua-dock pontoon in the harbour, and the station has since moved to a new building. Between them the two inshore boats answer the heavy summer traffic of the Dart estuary and the open coast towards Start Point — yachts and motor cruisers in difficulty, and people in the water along a crowded sailing river.
