Littlehampton Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | Fisherman's Quay, Littlehampton, West Sussex, BN17 5BL |
| Telephone | 01903 715351 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
At the mouth of the River Arun, Littlehampton runs a fast Atlantic 85 and a D-class over a busy holiday coast of beaches, sandbanks and a tricky harbour bar. A lifeboat first served the port from 1884; the modern inshore station, born of the leisure-boating boom, has answered the river and bay since 1967 — and the area’s lifesaving record reaches back to a celebrated gold-medal rescue of 1840, when fourteen lives were saved from two wrecks in a single storm.
Long before any station existed, the forerunner of the RNLI rewarded bravery off this coast: in a violent storm on 13 November 1840, coastguard Lieutenant Timothy Macnamara was awarded the Gold Medal, and Lieutenant George Davies the Silver, for saving fourteen lives from two wrecked vessels when heavy seas made launching impossible.
The RNLI established a lifeboat station at Littlehampton in 1884, with pulling-and-sailing self-righting boats working the approaches to the busy Arun harbour. After the First World War the port’s shipping declined sharply, suitable crew became hard to find, and a motor lifeboat was due at nearby Selsey; on 5 December 1921 the station was closed, leaving a gap of more than forty years covered by Selsey and Shoreham.
As pleasure boating surged in the 1960s the RNLI returned, placing a D-class inshore lifeboat — funded by the BBC Blue Peter appeal — on service in 1967. A larger Atlantic rigid inflatable followed, and the station has grown into a busy two-boat operation. The Atlantic 85 gives the speed and range to work well offshore along the Sussex coast, while the D-class is suited to the shallow river mouth and the surf line close in; between them they answer everything from broken-down motor cruisers off the bay to swimmers and walkers caught out by the tide on the wide beaches and sandbanks.
