Volunteers and crew members at Bembridge RNLI are making final preperations for next month’s 150th anniversary celebrations, which will see a service of thanksgiving and a sail past by 6 local lifeboats.
Representatives from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, local dignitaries, village residents and descendants of many Bembridge lifeboatmen will come together on Saturday 10th June to mark 150 years of Bembridge Lifeboat, in which time over 900 lives have been saved.
In 1867, the 35ft open lifeboat ‘City of Worcester’ arrived at Bembridge just 6 months after the sailing barque ‘Egbert’ was wrecked on Bembridge Ledge. The heroic rescue of the crew by Bembridge fishermen had made national news and thus inspired the people of Worcester to raise the funds to provide and install the first lifeboat at Bembridge. Henceforth, Bembridge became a lifeboat village and has remained so ever since.
With a crew of 10 sturdy oarsmen pulling the boat, often into the teeth of appalling conditions, the City of Worcester became the first of a succession of 7 further lifeboats at Bembridge, culminating in today’s Tamar class All Weather Lifeboat ‘Alfred Albert Williams’, together with her sister D-class inshore lifeboat ‘Norman Harvey’.
Next month’s major celebratory event will look back at the life-saving work of the hardy and courageous men who gallantly manned the early open lifeboats, as well as remembering all those who have served over the past 150 years.
The event will get underway at 12noon on Saturday 10th June at the Bembridge Inshore Lifeboat Station at Lane End. There will be a service of thanksgiving and the occasion will end with a sail past by 6 local lifeboats.
