Harwich Lifeboat Station

History

The first lifeboat at Harwich was in 1821 and was provided by a Lifeboat called Braybrooke, which had been named in honour of Richard Griffin, 2nd Baron Braybrooke, Lord Lieutenant of Essex. The finance behind the organisation came from the Essex Lifeboat Association, but there funds could not stretch to providing a lifeboat house for the Braybrooke and so she was kept permanently afloat in the harbour. Running concurrently with the Braybrooke was a second lifeboat on the Suffolk side of the estuary at Landguard Fort, and this lifeboat was called the Orwell. Neither of these lifeboats achieved a great deal of success and the Orwell was eventually sold and was converted to a yacht. There is no records of what became of the Braybrooke although it is recorded that the Harwich lifeboat had ceased operations by 1825.

Deutschland disaster

Following the wrecking of the passenger steamship of the SS Deutschland of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line on the 6 December 1875, it was decided that another Lifeboat was needed to be on station at Harwich. A new lifeboat house was constructed at Timberfields in 1876 and a lifeboat called Springwell was towed to the new station by steamer, arriving in January 1876. The New lifeboat was 35 feet long by 9 feet wide and was a self-righting class lifeboat. The Springwell remained at Harwich from 1876 until 1881 and was credited with saving the lives of 61 people, 23 of which had been saved during the launch to the barque Pasithea of Liverpool on 16 February 1883.

Steam Lifeboat

In 1889 the RNLI had taken delivery of its first steam powered lifeboat. This lifeboat was built by R. & H. Green of Blackwall and was called the Duke of Northumberland (ON 231). In 1890 this lifeboat was sent to Harwich and joined Springwell to cover the station. Springwell became known as Harwich No. 1 station whilst the Duke of Northumberland was moored afloat near Halfpenny Pier and became the No. 2 station. In 1892, following the successful short stay at Harwich the Duke of Northumberland was sent to New Brighton on Merseyside. In 1894 a second steam lifeboat called City of Glasgow (ON 362) was sent to Harwich. In 1902 the Harwich No. 1 station lifeboat Springwell (ON 317), the second boat to bear that name, was scrapped leaving the City of Glasgow the only lifeboat on station. In 1904 station No. 1 was given another pulling and sailing Watson class lifeboat called Ann Fawcett (ON 517). During these years just before the First World War Harwich was used as a trial station for the trials and testing of several new motor lifeboats such as Bradford (ON 350) (1907) and Charterhouse (ON 563) in 1909 which went on to service at Fishguard. In 1912 the Ann Fawcett was withdrawn from service once again leaving the City of Glasgow the only lifeboat on station.

War time closure

During the First World War the No. 2 station lifeboat City of Glasgow (ON 446) (The Second to bear this name) was the only lifeboat at Harwich. In 1917 the Admiralty decided to commandeer the lifeboat and they employed her on patrol duties. They also renamed her Patrick and the Harwich lifeboat station was closed. The area was covered jointly by Aldeburgh Lifeboat Station to the north and Walton Lifeboat Station to the south.

Re-opening

There were no lifeboats at the Harwich station for the next fifty years. By the middle of the 1960s the port of Felixstowe and Harwich was expanding rapidly and the RNLI decided to give Harwich lifeboat coverage again. In 1965 A 16 ft inshore rescue boat was placed on Station. This inflatable boat was partly funded from a local fund. The ILB was followed in September 1967 when a Waveney Class lifeboat called Margaret Graham (ON 1004) was sent to the port. This 44 foot ALB was to be at Harwich for a trial period of two years, with the inshore lifeboat remaining to cover the Orwell estuary. The Margaret Graham was built by Brooke Marine of Lowestoft took up station, afloat at Trinity Pier. Margaret Graham remained at Harwich until 1980 when she was replaced by John Fison (ON 1060), another of the Waveney class lifeboats.

The New Lifeboat Station

The facilities for the staff and crew who manned the lifeboats at Harwich were limited and following an intense period of fund raising from local supporters an appeal finally had enough funds to build a new boathouse and new training facilities for the crew. In 2003, after spending 40 years located in portacabins set up on Halfpenny Pier, the new boathouse and facilities opened at a cost of £1.25 million. The station building has been designed to bear a resemblance to the upturned hull of a boat. This was done to pay homage to the local boatbuilding method of constructing hulls upside down. The location called the Harwich Navyard has a history of boatbuilding particularly navy ships which is how it got its name.

Current Lifeboats

Currently (2013) Harwich has two lifeboats on station. The Albert Brown (ON 1202) is a Severn-class, fast afloat boat (FAB 3), which was built by Green Marine in 1995. she is an AWB and is 17 meters long, 5.5 meters wide with a depth of 1.38 meters. She has a top speed of 25 Knots and a range of 250 nautical miles. The Albert Brown was financed after a bequest from the late Victoria Maisie Brown to commemorate her late husband Albert Brown. The lifeboat was christened by Terry Waite CBE on the 25 May 1997.

Inshore lifeboat

The second boat at Harwich is an inshore lifeboat and has been on station since 2002. She is called Sure and Steadfast (B789) and is an Atlantic 75 second generation Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) in the B Class series. The lifeboat was named on the 18 May 2003 after the motto of the Boys' Brigade in recognition of the fund raising efforts for the RNLI by that organization.

The European Gateway Disaster

The most notable incident co-ordinated and attended by the Harwich station since the station re-opened in 1967 occurred on the evening of Sunday the 19 December 1982. The incident involved the Townsend Thoresen, roll-on roll-off (RORO) car ferry European Gateway which was leaving Felixstowe for Zeebrugge when it was in collision with Train ferry Speedlink Vanguard approaching Harwich Harbour. The bulbous bow of theSpeedlink Vanguard struck the European Gateway amidship immediately causing the ship to list within a very short period of time and she quickly capsized to the point where half the starboard side of the vessel was above the water. Every Alarm bell and siren in the estuary was sounded and the Harwich Lifeboat John Fison was launched along with many other local boats and harbour tugs responding to what was to be a major rescue effort. Within minutes of the alarm being raised two pilot boats were on the scene and started to rescue people from the European Gateway. The "Speedlink Vanguard" was able to launched a ship's lifeboat to assist in the rescue. Despite the difficult weather conditions and the darkness, almost all the survivors were rescued within an hour but following a head count it was found that six persons were missing. The DFDS Seaways Car Ferry Dana Futura which had taken up a position close to the incident, provided extra lighting by using her searchlights to aid the lifeboat and other rescue craft to searching for the missing people in the pitch black. Some of the rescued people who were suffering from cold and exposure were transferred to the Dana Futura where they were treated with the aid of the ships sauna. The John Fison recovered the bodies of two of the missing people. Eventually the search was called off following the retrieval of three other bodies. One person was unaccounted for. For their part in the disaster, the Harwich Lifeboat Coxswain and crew also received letters of appreciation signed by the Chairman of the RNLI. The coxswains of the two pilot boats who had been the first on the scene were awarded the RNLI Bronze Medal. Framed letters of appreciation signed by the RNLI Chairman were awarded to the 3 Masters of the Alexandra Towing Tugs "Sauria", "Alfred" and " Ganges ".