Morecambe Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Transporter |
| Address | Marine Road Central, Morecambe, Lancashire, LA4 4DB |
| Telephone | 01524 410317 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the promenade at Morecambe, looking out over the vast sands of Morecambe Bay, the station was the first in the RNLI to operate a rescue Hovercraft — the Hurley Flyer — alongside a D-class lifeboat. The bay’s tidal sands and quicksands make it one of the most dangerous stretches of coast in the country. The RNLI established the station in 1966.
As the RNLI placed fast inshore lifeboats around the coast in the 1960s, a station was established at Morecambe in May 1966 with a D-class lifeboat. But the bay itself posed a problem no conventional boat could solve: at low water, miles of mud, sand and quicksand are exposed, with fast tides racing across them — ground too soft for vehicles and too shallow for boats, where people cut off by the tide can quickly drown.
The answer was the rescue hovercraft. After trials in the bay and elsewhere, the RNLI placed its first hovercraft at Morecambe, operational on 23 December 2002 and later named Hurley Flyer (H-002). Able to fly over mud, sand and shallow water alike, it transformed lifesaving on the bay; Senior Commander Harry Roberts, who helped develop it, was later appointed MBE.
The dangers were laid bare on the night of 5 February 2004, when more than twenty Chinese cockle-pickers were cut off and drowned by the tide. The station now runs the hovercraft alongside a D-class lifeboat.
