Penlee Lifeboat Station is the base for Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) search and rescue operations for Mount's Bay in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The lifeboat station operated at various locations in Penzance from the early 19th century. It moved to Penlee Point near Mousehole in 1913, thus gaining its current name, but was moved to Newlyn in 1983 without any change of name. The station is remembered for the loss of the entire lifeboat crew on 19 December 1981.
Since 2003 the station has operated a all weather boat (ALB) and an Atlantic-class (currently an ) inshore lifeboat (ILB). The lifeboat has an operating range of and a top speed of , enabling it to reach any casualty up to , and within two hours in good weather. Adjacent lifeboats are at to the east, and to the west.
History
Early locations
The first lifeboat in Cornwall was purchased for Penzance in 1803. Part of its cost was paid by Lloyd's of London but it was sold, in 1812, without ever being used in service and was not replaced. In 1824 a district association was formed as part of the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck and the next lifeboat in Mount's Bay was again stationed at Penzance from 1826 to 1828 by the recently formed Institution.
The station then lapsed until 1851, when a lifeboat was again stationed in the town. The boat was kept at several different places around the town until a boathouse was built in 1856, for £88, by the RNLI (as the Institution was now known), at what is now the entrance to the railway station. There was local controversy when the boat did not launch on several occasions in 1862, and as a consequence, there was a proposal to move the lifeboat to Newlyn, which would have been unpopular with the residents of Penzance. As a compromise the lifeboat station moved to Wherrytown, where a new timber lifeboat house was opened in 1867 at the bottom of Alexandra Road, near the Coastguard Station. It was decided to move back to Penzance harbour, and in 1884 a new boathouse built of Lamorna granite at the foot of Jennings Street, at a cost of £575–6s–6d. This was paid for by a £1,000 gift from Henry Martn Harvey of Hexworthy, which also paid for a new lifeboat (Dora) and carriage. In 1908, the Penzance Lifeboat Elizabeth and Blanche was moved to Newlyn, where it was kept under a tarpaulin beside the harbour, although the 1884 boathouse remained in use until 1917 as a reserve station.
At Penlee Point
The lifeboat remained at Newlyn until 1913, when a new boathouse was built at Penlee Point south of Newlyn on the outskirts of Mousehole. This was elevated a little above the water, and the lifeboat could be launched down a slipway into open water at all states of the tide. The old "pulling and sailing" lifeboat was replaced by one with a motor in 1922. Several similar motor lifeboats were to follow, culminating in the Solomon Browne, a wooden, twin engined, boat that arrived at the station in 1960.
In 1936, Coxswain Frank Blewitt was awarded a RNLI bronze medal for rescuing the crew of nine from the SS Taycraig after it ran aground in Mount's Bay during a gale. Coxswain Edwin Madron received a silver medal and Mechanic Johny Drew a bronze medal for another exceptional service in April 1947. They took the W and S out into seas to rescue eight people from which ran aground on the way to the breakers yard after it had been retired at the end of the Second World War. Madron was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1957 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at a theatre in London. In the introduction the audience was told that although Madron 'has snatched so many lives from the cruel sea, that same sea has claimed his father and son'. He was told that the programme was dedicated 'as a tribute not only to you but to the thousands who man the lifeboats of Britain.'
In January 1975, the Solomon Browne was launched into a Force 12 hurricane when it was reported that the 13 crew members of the MV Lovat had abandoned ship south west of Lizard Point. A helicopter saved two people but the rest were drowned. The lifeboat had to drop the safety rails around its deck so that the bodies could be hauled out of the sea, all while the boat was rolling side-to-side at 60˚ and the seas were washing across the boat. They were at sea for nearly eight hours. The coxswain, Trevelyan Richards, was awarded a RNLI bronze medal.