St Mary’s Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Moored afloat |
| Address | Carn Thomas, Hugh Town, St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, TR21 0PS |
| Telephone | 01720 422347 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
From Hugh Town on the largest of the Isles of Scilly, St Mary’s runs a Severn-class all-weather lifeboat moored in the harbour, covering an archipelago of more than a hundred islands and reefs 28 miles beyond Land’s End. A lifeboat has served Scilly since 1837; in the great age of sail these rock-strewn waters were among the deadliest in Britain, and the station holds a remarkable record of twenty-six gallantry medals.
The Isles of Scilly lie squarely in the path of ships making the Western Approaches, ringed by reefs that have wrecked countless vessels. After the brig-sloop HMS Forester was driven onto Crow Bar — a rescue for which Midshipman Baldwin Wake won the Silver Medal — the Inspecting Commander of Coastguard established a local branch of the Institution, and a lifeboat station was set up at St Mary’s in 1837.
The first station closed in 1855, but was reopened in 1874, with a boathouse on the beach at Porth Cressa. In 1899 a new boathouse and slipway were built at Carn Thomas, the slipway extended in 1902 to allow launching at any state of tide, and the first motor lifeboat arrived in 1919.
Among the station’s most celebrated services was the rescue of 32 of the 38 crew of the Italian steamer Isabo, wrecked in dense fog on the Scilly Rock in 1927, the lifeboat working alongside open and motor boats from Bryher. The St Mary’s coxswaincy passed through generations of the Lethbridge family, whose names recur in the station’s honours. Since 1981 the lifeboat has lain afloat in the harbour rather than in the boathouse, and the station today runs the Severn-class The Whiteheads, covering the whole archipelago and the shipping lanes beyond.
