Falmouth Lifeboat's Deputy Lifeboat Press Officer, Simon Culliford, has shared the history behind Falmouth's crew and services to celebrate a special anniversary.

The RNLI is celebrating 60 years of dedicated inshore lifeboat crews saving lives at sea. These quick and agile boats were introduced to the RNLI fleet to help crews reach areas close to shore.

The D class was the first inshore lifeboat to be introduced to the RNLI's fleet in 1963 and since then, the RNLI's inshore lifeboat crews around the UK and Ireland have saved 30,778 lives.

The first service by an inshore rescue craft in Falmouth occurred on Thursday 10 August 1967 when, at 2.09 pm, Falmouth's Honorary Secretary received a telephone call from Falmouth Coastguard informing him that a small boat had overturned at Maenporth Beach and two or three people were in the water.

This occurred when trials were being carried out in Falmouth with the first Hatch class fast rescue/boarding boat 18-01. The RNLI had successfully introduced small inflatable high-speed rescue boats in 1963 and in 1967, two wooden inshore rescue boats of different designs were built for evaluation, the 20½ft Hatch class and the 18½ft McLachlan. The Hatch boat had a maximum speed of 30 knots.

At 2.15 pm 18-01 was launched with Willy Arthur and Ron Twydle on board. On reaching Maenporth they found a sailing dinghy and its single crew member who had already righted the capsized boat. They picked up the person and towed the dinghy to the beach. The rescue boat was back on her mooring by 2.54 pm.

By the end of the trial period at Falmouth, 18-01 had been used on a further three callouts with the last on 17 October 1967. The crew of a yacht had been seen firing flares off Zone Point and after launching at 12.37 pm, the crew of 18-01 found the yacht, Fiona of Hadin with no rudder. The rescue boat towed the yacht to a mooring in the Inner Harbour.

When 18-01 was withdrawn on 31 October 1967, it ended a three-month trial of Falmouth being an IRB (inshore rescue boat) station. It would be nearly 12½ years before Falmouth had a boat that was officially designated as an inshore lifeboat, the A class McLachlan inshore lifeboat A-508 although in the early 1970s, the station was sent the prototype A class McLachlan inshore lifeboat A-503 for use as a fast-boarding boat. Although it was never designated as a lifeboat at Falmouth, A-503 did launch on service 45 times.

The A-508 lifeboat in Falmouth. (Image: Simon Culliford)

In the years that followed, Falmouth has had three Atlantic 21 B class inshore lifeboats: B-518 Sole Bay (1987-1988), B-541 Elizabeth Bestwick (1988-1994), and B-595 Falmouth Round Table (1994-2007), an Atlantic 75 B-756 Eve Pank (2007-2019) and currently an Atlantic 85 B-916 Robina Nixon Chard, as station inshore lifeboats.

B-595 Falmouth Round Table in Falmouth (1994-2007) (Image: Simon Culliford)

Since 1967 and up until 2 May 2023, Falmouth inshore lifeboats have launched 1806 times, saving 104 lives and aiding 1499 people. These figures prove the worth of that trial in Falmouth 56 years ago.