Lifeboat may be a write off
Damage to an RNLI lifeboat which ran aground last Friday is so severe that her coxswain says it may be a write off. Sir Ronald Pechell Bt, Dunbar's 14m Trent class all-weather lifeboat, broke its moorings in ferocious weather conditions and was swept on to rocks at Torness.
The £1.6 million boat has since been lifted ashore, but Coxswain Gary Fairbairn says it has quite a few holes in its bottom, including two about 4ft in diameter. RNLI staff will conduct an investigation into the cause of the mooring failure, and the boat will be moved to a dockyard to undergo a thorough technical investigation to assess the damage.
A decision on the future of another all-weather lifeboat, the Severn class Katie Hannan, is still awaited. The £2 million boat was severely damaged when it was thrown ashore on Rathlin Island in January by a freak wave.
Motor Boats Monthly, 25 March 2008
|
