Dover Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Afloat |
| Address | New Marina Curve Road, Dover, Kent, CT17 9FQ |
| Telephone | 01304 279545 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
Guarding the world’s busiest shipping lane where it narrows at the Strait of Dover, the Dover lifeboat has saved life in the Channel since 1837. The station holds 19 gallantry medals and operates the largest boat in the fleet, a Severn-class all-weather lifeboat.
After a Commons report recorded 1,573 vessels wrecked or stranded off Dover in just three years, the Dover Humane and Shipwreck Institution placed a lifeboat here in 1837; the RNLI took over in 1855. War, harbour works and the growth of the ferry port forced the station to move and close several times, but it has always returned.
In 1930 Dover received one of the RNLI’s first fast motor lifeboats, the Sir William Hillary, nearly twice the speed of the rest of the fleet. The newest station, on the New Marina Curve in the Western Docks, opened in 2024.
