Queensferry Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | Hawes Pier, South Queensferry, Edinburgh EH30 9TB |
| Telephone | 0131 331 1529 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
Queensferry Lifeboat Station sits on Hawes Pier in the shadow of the Forth Bridge, on the south shore of the River Forth within the City of Edinburgh. Founded in 1967 as part of the RNLI’s inshore expansion, it has grown into one of the busiest inshore lifeboat stations in Scotland, covering the inner Forth estuary and its islands. The station operates a B-class Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat from a modern boathouse opened in 2012.
As the RNLI placed fast inshore lifeboats around the coast in the mid-1960s, South Queensferry Lifeboat Station was established in July 1967 at Hawes Pier, its first home a wooden shed that had been the ticket office for the ferry across the Forth before the road bridge opened. The first lifeboat was a D-class, and in 1972 it was replaced by the larger, faster Atlantic 21. The station was later renamed Queensferry at the request of its branch.
A succession of Atlantic-class boats followed — Atlantic 21, Atlantic 75 and the current Atlantic 85 — and in 2011 the new boat was named Jimmie Cairncross at Dundas Castle by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, after a Perth jeweller whose trust funded her. A new station building incorporating crew and training facilities, a workshop and a boat hall with direct access to the river was completed in 2012. In 2021 the lifeboat was launched on service 100 times in a single year for the first time.
