Lyme Regis Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | The Cobb, Lyme Regis, Dorset, DT7 3JJ |
| Telephone | 01297 442230 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the historic Cobb harbour wall at the western edge of Dorset, Lyme Regis runs a single carriage-launched Atlantic 85 over the wide curve of Lyme Bay. A lifeboat has been associated with the town since 1826; the station closed in 1932 and reopened as an inshore station in 1967, and the town’s lifesaving story reaches back to a gold-medal rescue of 1824.
The story begins before the station: on 23 November 1824 the Unity was wrecked between Lyme Regis and Charmouth, and the forerunner of the RNLI awarded a Gold Medal to Captain C. C. Benett RN and Silver Medals to William Porter and John Freeman for saving four lives. Captain Sir Richard Spencer then fitted local boats with air-tight boxes and cork fenders so they could serve as lifeboats.
A lifeboat station was established at Lyme in 1826. On Boxing Day 1852 the barque Heroine struck the rocks in a hurricane; four of the five men who put out in a shoreboat to help were drowned. The tragedy led the RNLI to send a purpose-built lifeboat, which arrived by September 1853, and a new boathouse followed in 1883.
By 1932 the station had been called out 32 times, but with motor lifeboats now at Weymouth and Exmouth it was closed. An inshore station reopened in May 1967 with a D-class inflatable; that summer the crew were accorded Vellums for saving five from the capsized cabin cruiser Lilian, and the following January the inshore boat capsized on service to the catamaran Karuna, with the loss of crew member Robert Jefford. A new headquarters on the Cobb opened in 1997–98, and the station now runs a carriage-launched Atlantic 85 across Lyme Bay.
