Qualla: Whitehills Lifeboat Station

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The problem at Banff in 1917 was not the boat. The problem was the crew. World War One had taken so many men from the harbour that there was no longer a roster from which to launch a lifeboat. The station closed temporarily, then never quite reopened. By 1923 the Royal National Lifeboat Institution had given up trying to find seven able-bodied volunteers in Banff or Macduff at the same hour of any given storm. They moved the boat instead - down the coast to Whitehills, where the herring fleet still gathered and the men to crew a lifeboat could still be found.

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: Why Whitehills

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Whitehills sits on the south shore of the Moray Firth, a small fishing harbour tucked into a stone-built cluster of houses on the north Aberdeenshire coast - then part of old Banffshire. In 1859 Captain MacDonald of the Banff coastguard had written to the RNLI urging them to put ...

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: The Difficult Delivery of 1932

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Whitehills got its first proper motor lifeboat in 1932 - a 35-foot 6-inch self-righting boat, 35 horsepower, top speed seven and one-third knots. She had to travel from her builder's yard at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, all the way around the British coast. The boat reached Aberde...

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: Civil Service No.4

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The ceremony was a grand affair. The Banff Pipe Band played. The Turriff Silver Band played. Lord Southborough handed the boat to the Institution. The Duke of Montrose accepted it and passed it to the local branch. The Reverend J. G. Ledingham gave the service of dedication, and ...

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: Forty-Five Years

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Whitehills boat served through the Second World War, through the post-war fishing boom, through the slow transformation of the inshore fleet. After 45 years of cover - with neighbouring stations to the east and west sharing the work - the RNLI decided in 1969 to withdraw the ...

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

Whitehills Lifeboat Station: The Boat Came Back, But Not Here

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. In March 1974 the RNLI reversed itself - and re-established the station, but not at Whitehills. The boat went back to Macduff, where the fishing port had become large enough to support a roster again. Macduff Lifeboat Station has held that cover ever since. Whitehills today is a ...

Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0