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Throughout the years we have been invited by RNLI Lerwick Lifeboat to assist with their training exercises, they rely entirely on donations and fundraising so that they can train their crews to keep saving lives at sea.
Our boat acts as a casualty vessel under tow, allowing their crew to practice important skills such as safely attaching tow lines, taking a boat under tow and manoeuvring a boat without power alongside a safe berth in the harbour. This is extremely valuable experience for their crew.
The Lerwick branch of the RNLI has provided four lifeboats over the last 90 years. The first one arrived in July 1930 and was called the Lady Jane and Martha Ryland, now we have the beautiful Michael and Jane Vernon 17-10. The current lifeboat is a severn-class all-weather vessel (56 feet) and the most powerful in the RNLI’s fleet, with two ‘MTU’ engines that produce up to 1600 horsepower, a top speed of 25 knots and a range of 250 nautical miles.
The costs for all 4 lifeboats have been entirely met by donations. The team are grateful to all those in Shetland & beyond who have helped with funding.
Their service has been recognised with 62 RNLI Gallantry Awards, including the most recent RNLI gold medal awarded to Coxswain Mechanic Hewitt Clark for the rescue of five crew of the Green Lily off Bressay in November 1997.
We are proud to support our local community and as Shetland’s first tour operator to announce publicly in 2022 that we were awaiting Green Tourism grading, we continue to set good examples in all that we do.
We will continue to support our local heroes in any way we can. We host an RNLI donation box inside our cabin, whilst on our tours, if you have any loose change please feel free to donate. Every donation goes towards helping lives at sea.
We also support them by providing gift vouchers as raffles for local fundraising events organised by the committee, keep up the good work folks…you are amazing.
Photo Credits: Bob Kerr
