Lizard Lifeboat

[Cornishman]

If you get into trouble anywhere in the vicinity of the mainland's most southerly point, The Lizard, you will be in safe hands should the lifeboat be sent to your rescue.
Launching from the recently completed and stylish new lifeboat house in Kilcobben Cove the new Tamar Class boat will be with you very quickly.
The whole project, started last year and continued through the coldest winter for many years, along with the new boat has cost in the region of £10 million.

 

[cliffdale]

Do you know what the lifeboat is called? There was a new lifeboat in Pendennis Marina for about 2 weeks. I cant remember its name but a memory prompt will help!

 

[Lady Campanula]

W'ere's that to, then?


Ah, got it. Just south of Church Cove Road. Thanks to Google Earth.....

Question for 'Cornishman'. What depth of water would one find in the 'entrance' to Mullion Quay and immediately left along the wall? LW Ordinary Springs....

 

[25931]

Do you know what the lifeboat is called? There was a new lifeboat in Pendennis Marina for about 2 weeks. I cant remember its name but a memory prompt will help!

I think that she is called Rose

 

[photodog]

W'ere's that to, then?


Ah, got it. Just south of Church Cove Road. Thanks to Google Earth.....

Question for 'Cornishman'. What depth of water would one find in the 'entrance' to Mullion Quay and immediately left along the wall? LW Ordinary Springs....

Cant be more than 1/2 meter......

 

[Bosun Higgs]

The whole project, started last year and continued through the coldest winter for many years, along with the new boat has cost in the region of £10 million.

Am I alone in wondering if it was really necessary to spend so much and if the RNLI has simply lost the need to be careful with the charity money it receives.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Am I alone in wondering if it was really necessary to spend so much and if the RNLI has simply lost the need to be careful with the charity money it receives.

The expensive bit is the new boathouse and slipway. That's why there are now so few slipway-launched lifeboats (I think I'm right in saying that within a year or two there will only be 11). In order to save money, the RNLI have for some time now been trying to keep boats afloat instead, but at some locations that just isn't possible.

 

[pvb]

Am I alone in wondering if it was really necessary to spend so much and if the RNLI has simply lost the need to be careful with the charity money it receives.

Isn't it more a case of the RNLI having to find things to spend their money on, to avoid criticism over the extent of their reserves?

 

[Juan Twothree]

Isn't it more a case of the RNLI having to find things to spend their money on, to avoid criticism over the extent of their reserves?

That may have been the case fifteen or twenty years ago, but certainly isn't the case now.

Back then, the Charity Commission expressed unease about the size of the RNLI's reserves, so they spent money on new boats and boathouses. Which, you may say is "spending money for the sake of it", but others might disagree.

Since then, the economic climate has changed considerably. The RNLI is still planning to have an all-25 knot lifeboat fleet within the next few years (replacing the Mersey Class boats, which are already 20 or so years old) but if the income isn't there to finance that, then the boat-building programme will have to be put on hold.

 

[penfold]

AWB ticket price is of the order of ~£5 million, then you have the civil engineering challenges of building a robust slipway and shed big enough for a Tamar plus the logistical nightmare of building it at the bottom of a scary looking cliff, which makes £5 million look like a fairly reasonable bill. As to whether it really needs to be there in the first place, I have no notion.

 

[halcyon]

AWB ticket price is of the order of ~£5 million, then you have the civil engineering challenges of building a robust slipway and shed big enough for a Tamar plus the logistical nightmare of building it at the bottom of a scary looking cliff, which makes £5 million look like a fairly reasonable bill. As to whether it really needs to be there in the first place, I have no notion.

They had a rig along side the slip sitting on the seabed to operate from, with a large crane on board that covered the whole site, all the bits arrived pre-fabricated for the slip, preformed timber framed building with cladding. Nice set of photos in October issue of Cornwall Life.

Good job we don't have to build lighthouses on a rock 2 mile offshore to-day.

When was the last time you sure a civil engineering job look value for money ? how much did Wembly cost, or come to that the Maritime Museum Falmouth.

Brian

 

[Lady Campanula]

I'm glad they have a nice warm new shed, in which to put their nice warm new AWLB. I've met those boys, 20 miles or so south, in March, in the night, in a rising Easterly F8 going on F9 - and were right pleased to see them at the time.

Apparently they broke the wheelhouse windows on launch, so big were the seas. "Spilled my tea," quoth the cox'n.

Right keen they were to get to Newlyn, and we found out why when they all tucked into a free breakfast at the 'Institute'....

 

[Cornishman]

Do you know what the lifeboat is called? There was a new lifeboat in Pendennis Marina for about 2 weeks. I cant remember its name but a memory prompt will help!

Sorry for the delay, been a bit busy today.
As has already been answered the new boat is the RNLB Rose and details of her and the station can be found at www.thelizardlifeboat.co.uk
This is not an official RNLI website but is full of up to date information which I have no reason to doubt.

 

[Cornishman]

W'ere's that to, then?


Ah, got it. Just south of Church Cove Road. Thanks to Google Earth.....

Question for 'Cornishman'. What depth of water would one find in the 'entrance' to Mullion Quay and immediately left along the wall? LW Ordinary Springs....

I have not visited Mullion Cove for some years, being a resident of the Tamar Valley, but there is a harbour plan chart, Admiralty Chart 2345 (?), which should give you all you need to know.
There is also a description of Porth Mellin Harbour (Mullion Cove) in The Channel Pilot NP27.
I hope this is of help.

 

[fisherman]

Am I alone in wondering if it was really necessary to spend so much and if the RNLI has simply lost the need to be careful with the charity money it receives.

Don't know, but they certainly had a big local fund-raising push for this project, which implies the cash wasn't all surplus.

 

[Lady Campanula]

I have not visited Mullion Cove for some years, being a resident of the Tamar Valley, but there is a harbour plan chart, Admiralty Chart 2345 (?), which should give you all you need to know.
There is also a description of Porth Mellin Harbour (Mullion Cove) in The Channel Pilot NP27.
I hope this is of help.

Thanks for that. I appreciate your input.....

I keep a Rival at Wearde Quay - which is Cornwall - and I reckon she's too deep to faff about in there. Now, my new ( old ) Cutlass could probably sneak in there on the top half of a tide, and lie quietly against the wall while I investigated rumours of a good pint.....

That's for 'soon'....

 

[fisherman]

Thanks for that. I appreciate your input.....

I keep a Rival at Wearde Quay - which is Cornwall - and I reckon she's too deep to faff about in there. Now, my new ( old ) Cutlass could probably sneak in there on the top half of a tide, and lie quietly against the wall while I investigated rumours of a good pint.....

That's for 'soon'....

A (pub) pint is at least a mile away: the harbour is not to be messed with except in East wind and high pressure, and definitely no ground sea. Most moor outside. If the weather is fit and the fishing boats have been 'left down', ie, not pulled up the slip there would be little space along the wall. When the harbour was built some old fisherman said "If you bring a ship in here she'll leave her bones here" which is what happened. Not sure it was ever used for other than fishing.

 

[Reverend Ludd]

I must say I totally admire the guys who man the lifeboats.
When most of us are tucked up safe in harbour or at home because we have the luxury of deciding that the sea is too fearsome to face. They begin their nights work and sometimes pay with their lives, I think it takes a very special person to do that.
Respect is due.

 

[Lady Campanula]

A (pub) pint is at least a mile away: the harbour is not to be messed with except in East wind and high pressure, and definitely no ground sea. Most moor outside. If the weather is fit and the fishing boats have been 'left down', ie, not pulled up the slip there would be little space along the wall. When the harbour was built some old fisherman said "If you bring a ship in here she'll leave her bones here" which is what happened. Not sure it was ever used for other than fishing.

Thanks. I understand that.

I've been in before, in a 37' catamaran, in very quiet easterly 'High' weather. It's just I've got to the stage of wanting to visit many of the wee harbours in the SW that I've always passed by - St Ives, St Michael's Mount, Porthleven, Charlestown, Mullion, Mouz'l, even Newquay - while I can.

 

[mikefleetwood]

You could come visit cadgwith (about 1mile E of Lizard Lifeboat) - at least the pub is in stumbling distance (whether I'd recommend it is another matter - Friday nights still usually fun though).

As already said, new lifeboat is RNLB Rose. Funded mostly (entirely?) through local effort and anonymous donation. Unusually, named after the local pilot gig, rather than donor, I think. I believe original total project cost was going to be £3.7M, haven't heard of any overrun.

New lifeboat house was needed (replacing on site the 60's house) because the Tamar won't fit in the old one!

Whilst the new house was being built, the lifeboat was moored off Cadgwith, mostly, but sometimes Polpeor (Lizard Point), and hiding in Falmouth if any bad weather (mostly due to impossibility of rib transfer from the beach in any sea).