Qualla: Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John M, CC BY-SA 2.0. The figures are quiet but they tell a hard story. In April 1953 the Fraserburgh lifeboat John and Charles Kennedy went out to a herring drifter in trouble and was capsized by a wave on the harbour bar; six of her seven crewmen drowned, only the mechanic surviving. In January 1970 the lifeboat Duchess of Kent went out to a Danish fishing boat in a force 9 gale forty miles offshore and was thrown end over end by a sea; five of her six men were lost, again with only the mechanic recovered alive. Two disasters, eleven dead. And yet the station - first established in 1805, made the first Scottish station of the RNLI in 1858 - kept going. It is still working today.

Image: John M | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: Henry Greathead's Boat

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JBPM67, CC BY-SA 2.0. The story begins in 1805 with a boatbuilder named Henry Greathead, the man who had built one of the earliest dedicated lifeboats in Britain twenty years before. The Fraserburgh Harbour Commissioners commissioned a boat from him, paid for by the local landowner Sir William Forbes....

Image: JBPM67 | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: The First Scottish Station

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. In November 1857 Lewis Chalmers, the Chief Magistrate of Fraserburgh, wrote to the RNLI listing thirteen shipwrecks on this coast in the previous ten years. Captain Ward, Inspector of Lifeboats, came north to assess. In March 1858 the RNLI agreed to establish a station - Scotland...

Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: 9 February 1953

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JBPM67, CC BY-SA 2.0. The first disaster came on a Wednesday afternoon. The Fraserburgh lifeboat John and Charles Kennedy launched at about 1:25 PM to help the herring drifter Princess Marie Jose make harbour through a strong easterly gale. She reached the drifter, escorted her in, and was returning a...

Image: JBPM67 | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: 21 January 1970

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Webb, CC BY-SA 2.0. Seventeen years later it happened again. At 6:30 AM on 21 January 1970 the lifeboat Duchess of Kent was launched into a force 8 to 9 gale to help the Danish fishing boat Opal, which was taking on water forty miles offshore. She arrived at 11:00 to find the Opal already in tow fro...

Image: Richard Webb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Fraserburgh Lifeboat Station: Willie and May Gall

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anne Burgess, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 8 May 2002 the new lifeboat 14-34 Willie and May Gall (ON 1259) arrived at Fraserburgh - a fibre-reinforced-composite hull fitted out by Souters of Cowes, twin MAN diesels developing 800 brake horsepower, top speed 25 knots, cost 1,240,452 pounds. She was named in a ceremony o...

Image: Anne Burgess | CC BY-SA 2.0