Qualla: Cullercoats Lifeboat Station

Cullercoats Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On a training exercise in 1939, the Cullercoats lifeboat capsized off Sharpness Point. Six crewmen drowned, including the Coxswain and the Honorary Secretary. The boat was the first non-self-righting lifeboat the station had ever used - a motor-powered vessel called Richard Silver Oliver, brought in two years earlier to replace the era of pulling and sailing. The surviving crewmen made a decision. They refused to take another non-self-righting lifeboat to sea. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution closed the Cullercoats station until 1940, when a self-righting replacement could be brought in. Eighty-five years of lifeboat tradition had ended in tragedy because something newer was assumed to be safer. The crew said no. The RNLI listened.

Cullercoats Lifeboat Station: The Duke's Lifeboat

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Cullercoats station was founded in 1852 by Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, president of the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. The Duke personally funded the boathouse - 36 feet long, 15 feet wide, stone-built - and the boat it...

Cullercoats Lifeboat Station: The Capsize at Sharpness Point

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The motor-powered Richard Silver Oliver arrived in 1937 as the first motor lifeboat at Cullercoats - and the first non-self-righting boat in eighty-five years of station history. Its 35-horsepower engine gave a speed of 7.33 knots, and at £3,684 it represented a significant inves...

Cullercoats Lifeboat Station: Inshore Boats and Modern Honours

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Following a coastal review in 1968, with all-weather lifeboats at neighbouring stations and an inshore lifeboat already at Cullercoats since 1965, the RNLI withdrew the Cullercoats all-weather lifeboat. The 37-foot Sir James Knott was formally withdrawn on 4 May 1969, transferred...