Lifeboat

It’s funny, I still identify with a Tyne Class Lifeboat, 47-022, operational in the ‘90s to the more recent decades. Firing two 425 bhp diesel engines, it was one of the first self-righting lifeboats and had a distinguished career. I remember it fondly because as a family we used to holiday in Salcombe, a small village on the Devon coast, where they had the “Baltic Exchange 2” which was made famous in a fly-on-the-wall documentary “Lifeboat”.

Random fact: Did you know that the Salcombe lifeboat Baltic Exchange - a modified Watson class lifeboat - was one of the first self righting lifeboats (most Watsons weren’t) and just as well, as it capsised on service on the 10th April 1983.