History of the Isle of Wight lifeboat building industry

These extoll the brave men and women who serve the RNLI and put their own lives at risk to save those in distress.

These lifeboat crews depend entirely on the reliability of the lifeboats they use

East Cowes is celebrating the skills of the lifeboat builder over the weekend of May 25 to 27.

Choosing oak crook for the stem of a lifeboat (Image: IW Society)

Their oral history has been used to create a film, to be shown that weekend.

Cowes and East Cowes have had a long association with the RNLI.

Rother framework (Image: IW Society)

Mr White and his neighbour Mr Lamb designed a lifeboat in 1846 which became very popular.

At that time the RNLI wanted a boat that would self-right if it capsized. The Lamb and White boat was designed not to capsize in the first place!

Many steam passenger vessels purchased the Lamb and White boats. The Queen had one on the Royal Yacht, the Navy ordered 500, the coastguards too.

Independent lifeboat stations, which later came under the RNLI, adopted the Lamb and White boat.

Hansens of East Cowes received orders to build RNLI Lifeboats from 1888. These were all pulling and sailing boats, one of which served at Brook.

Steam was tried as a means of propulsion in the 1890s, with J. S. White’s building three steam lifeboats for the RNLI.

In 1904 the first ever experiments with petrol engines in an RNLI craft were trialled in the Solent.

Aircases for buoyancy. Apprentices were tasked with making watertight boxes (Image: IW Heritage Services)

Mr Guy of Cowes had been asked to add an engine to a pulling craft, and the RNLI was very pleased with the new motor lifeboat.

S. E. Saunders received orders from the RNLI in 1918 to build motor lifeboats, soon followed by J. S. White’s yard, and Groves and Guttridge’s yard.

The RNLI set up an office in East Cowes, by 1936 on their present site in Clarence Road.

Here they had an area where timber could be stored until it was required, whole tree trunks with the naturally grown bends needed for strong construction.

Between the wars, 90 per cent of lifeboats for the RNLI were constructed beside the Medina River.

Arun Class on a test capsize (Image: Andy Churches)

Every craft was carefully built by skilled boat builders. Different classes of boats were constructed.

It was not until the late 1930s that all the old pulling and sailing lifeboats were replaced by motor lifeboats.

Over 400 lifeboats were built for lifeboat stations around the coast of Britain and the Irish Republic.

Part of a new lifeboat (Image: IW Society)

Today, the same RNLI site houses the Inshore Lifeboat Centre in East Cowes. The rubber boats were built here from 1963. Today, every inshore lifeboat is built in East Cowes, and the reliability of the craft is exceptional.

Even the engines are immersion proofed here – a job the manufacturers said was impossible.