As it was a lovely sunny afternoon we took the opportunity to travel down the Kent coast to Whitstable after our visit to Sheerness in October. We had visited the Whitstable Lifeboat station back in June but it was closed by the time we arrived. This time we were able to go into the station and see their Atlantic 85, Lewisco (B-877)
We had learnt from our visit to Barmouth in Wales that their old Liverpool Class lifeboat “The Chieftain” had been restored and was based in Whitstable. We had seen a superb model of the boat in the crew room at Barmouth and so we thought it would be nice to see it in the flesh – or wood!
The boat had just arrived back from a short trip around the bay as we chatted with her owner, Sue from Whitstable Vintage Lifeboat Trips. She was very interested in our challenge and how we had come across The Chieftain during our visit to Barmouth earlier in the month. We learnt that the boat had featured on a special 200th anniversary episode of “Saving Lives at Sea” hosted by Dermot O’Leary.
We booked two tickets for a 30 minute trip on the boat around the bay. It was a beautiful calm sea and it was a very interesting trip with loads of information about the history of the area and the boat.
Below is a bit of a potted history of The Chieftain taken from the National Historic Ships Website and the Whitstable Vintage Lifeboat Trips website.
THE CHIEFTAIN is a twin screw 35' 6” (10.8m) Liverpool class lifeboat built by Groves and Gutterage of Cowes, Isle of Wight in 1948 at a cost of £9,943. She was of double diagonal construction, had a mahogany hull and two 18hp petrol engines. Her top speed with her original engines was just 7.25 knots.
The majority of Liverpool class lifeboats were carriage launched. The Chieftain was slip launched and was the last lifeboat at Barmouth to be slip launched due to the estuary becoming silted up.
The vessel was the Barmouth lifeboat from 11th March 1949 to 1982 when she was retired as one of the last of the Liverpool Class RNLI Lifeboats. She was named on 6 July the year she arrived, and just 3 weeks later, on 29 July, she was out on her first shout. An aircraft had crashed into the sea 6 miles off Barmouth and The Chieftain set out in strong onshore winds and a rough sea. The crew located the wreckage and found the pilot clinging to his inflatable dinghy, but there was no sign of the co-pilot. They searched the area and, sadly, eventually found his body which they recovered and brought ashore.
Many of her shouts were in heavy weather, and she was a wet boat in such conditions, providing very little shelter for her crew. Before even leaving harbour the bowman got a soaking, just from launching down the slip. One thing was certain, she had the full confidence of the men who took her to sea, and she did everything that they asked of her.
During her 33 year-long career in Barmouth, The Chieftain worked hard, when boating for pleasure was beginning to become a popular pastime and the fishing fleet was about to be at its busiest. She was called out 113 times during her working life, which is very nearly as many as all of her predecessors combined, and she has been credited with carrying her crew to save 132 lives, more than twice as many as any earlier boat.
During the 50s and 60s and well into the 70s, the lifeboat crews were summoned to a launch by the firing of maroons from the lifeboat house by the bridge. The sound of these maroons could be heard for miles and the whole town was alerted and dogs howled as the crew made their way to the boathouse. The Chieftain always had a good audience as crowds thronged the quayside to see her launch and return.
Restored to her former glory in the 2000s, she retains 90% of her original timber and all her original fittings. Her original engines were replaced with Beta model 38s
On 3rd June 2012 she was selected to take part in Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant on the River Thames.
In 2019, Whitstable locals Richard and Sue Judge had been looking for a boat to run trips from Whitstable harbour and with Richard having been crew on the local Lifeboat for nearly forty years before retiring, The Chieftain was just the job. Here they operate boat trips and seal safaris from Whitstable harbour.
In June 2023, THE CHIEFTAIN was awarded the title of NHS-UK's Operational Flagship of the Year, in recognition of the day trips and open days planned as part of her 75th anniversary and her growing presence on social media.
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