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Few coastal resorts our size have such splendid coverage for misfortunes
at sea as Burnham-on-Sea.
The first lifeboat station was established here in 1836, following
a local shipping disaster (see plaque on sea wall). Sir Peregrine
Acland presented Bridgwater with a lifeboat and built a boathouse
here. It was replaced in 1847, and the Station taken over by the
RNLI in 1866 with a new ten-oared vessel, given by the people of
Cheltenham, who ceremoniously named it by launching it into a nearby
lake before it came here.
In 1874 a new Station was built, next to the railway station, where
the boat on a special carriage, could be hauled on railway lines
along Pier Street and launched down the pier constructed in 1855.
The boathouse can still be seen today.
Further boats followed in 1887 and 1902, but motor lifeboats at
Weston and Minehead lead Burnham to close in 1930, after 25 launches
and saving 45 lives!
In 1992 a group of local sailing enthusiasts and others was established
to raise funds for an inshore lifeboat (BARB – Burnham Area
Rescue Boat). Two years later it was “christened” in
the High Street, though storing the boat three miles away did not
daunt the enthusiasm of the volunteers, it did little to impress
the authorities!
A boathouse on the seafront itself came in 1995 through the BBC
TV programme “Challenge Anneka” and Sedgemoor District
Council, which provided the site and technical services. Big crowds
watched the completion of the boathouse within the three days time
limit, monitored daily on television. The Pier Street car park was
cluttered with building material and the roof trusses were lifted
by crane over the carriageway to cheering and bewildered crowds.
All gave their skills and incidentally the site manager, a volunteer
from Wimpeys had never worked on a project costing less than £20
million!
The structure also provided a first aid room, and headquarters for
the Coast Guard Services, which had previously been housed in the
closed toilets in Apex Park for without it there was a decision
to leave the town.
In summer 2002, after a five-year-old Bristol girl, Lelaina Hall
died following a mudflat incident off Brean coast, the Western Daily
Press launched an appeal to buy a hovercraft. A staggering £115,000
led to the commissioning of the “Spirit of Lelaina”
and a further extension to the boathouse.
With the dramatic increase in the use of our coastal waters by so
many new and differing types of craft, the number of “shouts”
answered by BARB had risen to 25 a year, the need to re-establish
the RNLI station was apparent.
The BARB boathouse could not accommodate the size of craft envisaged,
so it was decided to convert an existing warehouse on land to the
rear of Morrisons, back almost exactly the same site, as 130 years
before. On May 15 2004, the Vice Lord Lieutenant of the County,
Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Benjamin Bathhurst officially opened the
RNLI Station and the Atlantic 75 craft “Staines Whitfield”,
was christened.
In addition to the “75” a smaller craft, a specially
designed track vehicle, the first of its kind dubbed “Kay’s
Cart” enables craft to be launched and recovered not only
from the sea but from the Estuary of the River Brue, by the Sailing
Club, in adverse weather.
The Coastguard Station is fully equipped with modern location and
satellite aids, and has a mud rescue sledge. Its volunteers patrol
along a sector of our coastline in their Land Rovers and with their
equipment have undertaken dramatic rescues both human and animal
from the Brean Down Cliffs!
All three of our local services exercise and collaborate with the
R.A.F’s coastal rescue helicopters.
All three of these vital services are open to the public from time
to time, and all seek new volunteers, both men and women. The work,
for which full training is given, (including a hovercraft pilot’s
licence) is exciting, exacting, social and fun, but above all very
rewarding!
Neville Jones
For further information ring:
H.M. Coastguard: 07967 292614
R.N.L.I: 01278 792328
B.A.R.B: 07834 635797
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