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| Dunbar lifeboat station | |
| RNLI Lifeboat station | |
 Dunbar Lifeboat Station
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| Country | Scotland |
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| County | East Lothian |
| Town | Dunbar |
| Location | Dunbar Lifeboat Station, Victoria Harbour, Dunbar, East Lothian |
| - coordinates | 56°00′19″N 2°30′52″W / 56.00528°N 2.51444°W |
| Material | Brick |
| Founded | 1808 |
| Owner | Royal National Lifeboat Institution |
| Visitation | By Appointment (All year round) |
 Dunbar
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Dunbar Lifeboat Station is a lifeboat station located in Dunbar on the South East coast of Scotland, operated by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Dunbar Lifeboat Station currently operates a 'Trent' Class All Weather Lifeboat and a 'D' Class Inshore Lifeboat. The current coxswain is Gary Fairbairn.
Contents |
History [link]
Notable services [link]
Yacht Ouhm 20 July 2009 In a force 8 gale and very rough seas, with swells of up to 7m, the skipper of the 8m Swedish yacht Ouhm issued a Pan-Pan call, which was picked up by Forth Coastguard. The request to launch the RNLI Dunbar lifeboat soon followed and the crew put to sea at 5.30pm and headed for a position 37 miles north east of the station.
The yacht was reported to have suffered two knockdowns and the skipper was finding it difficult to cope with the extreme weather conditions. The two people on board were drifting at speeds of up to 5 knots towards the north side of the Firth of Forth.
With the crew in their seats, the lifeboat soon cleared the breakwaters and made best speed towards the yacht.
However, further offshore several breaking seas hit the lifeboat as the swell became larger and the wind increased to a severe gale force 9. At one point, the lifeboat fell 10m from the crest of a wave. Soon afterwards, another huge wave knocked her on her side, but she was able to self right.
The lifeboat reached the yacht at 7.45pm and it was quickly decided that the skipper and his wife should be evacuated to the lifeboat. As there was no liferaft aboard, Coxswain Fairbairn would have the difficult task of getting alongside the small yacht in 10m seas. On the second approach, the lifeboat crew were able to grab the woman and pull her aboard the lifeboat. On the third approach alongside Ouhm the man was pulled from the deck and over the guardrails of the lifeboat. The couple were then taken to the safety of the wheelhouse and then back to dry land, the yacht having been abandoned.
RNLI Divisional Inspector for Scotland, Wave Crookes, says: ‘The RNLI is proud to recognise this service, which was carried out in the finest traditions of the Institution. Ouhm had already suffered two full knockdowns before the lifeboat arrived and I know the crew felt the couple’s lives were in grave danger. The woman said she “felt she was already saved” when she saw the lifeboat arrive alongside and the crew reaching down to pull her on board.
‘The coxswain demonstrated exemplary leadership and the whole crew showed extreme courage throughout the service. The conditions during the passage to the casualty were extreme but at no stage did the crew consider giving up, even when the lifeboat sustained damage and equipment broke loose. Coxswain Fairbairn’s boat handling was exemplary and neither the lifeboat nor the casualty suffered any damage while the casualties were evacuated. Dunbar Coxswain Gary Fairbairn is to be awarded the RNLI’s Bronze Medal for Gallantry for his part in saving a couple from their yacht in a severe gale on 15 May.
Coxswain Fairbairn’s crew on that night – Mechanic Kenny Peters and Crew Members Stuart Pirie, Kevin Keillor, Brian Cleator and John Watt – will each receive Medal Service Certificates.’[1]
Sir Ronald Pechell BT [link]
Sir Ronald Pechell BT was a Trent class all weather lifeboat that operated at Dunbar from 1995 to 2008. During the Easter weekend of 2008 the lifeboat was damaged beyond economic repair after her moorings snapped during severe storms. The Sir Ronald Pechell Bt, valued at £208K in 2008, cost £1.05M to build in 1995 and in her 13 years of service at Dunbar had launched 206 times and rescued 171 people. The lifeboat, John Neville Taylor, from the charity’s relief fleet has been allocated to the town permanently.
Fleet [link]
| Dates in service | Class | ON | Op. No. | Name |
| 1808–1821 | Original Lifeboat[2] | |||
| 1865–1893 | Wallace | |||
| 1893–1901 | Sarah Pickard | |||
| 1901–1931 | William Arthur Millward | |||
| 1907–1943 | Liverpool Class | Sarah Kay (Skateraw) | ||
| 1931–1959 | Watson Class | ON 749 | George and Sarah Strachan | |
| 1959–1986 | Watson Class | ON 947 | Margaret | |
| 1986–1988 | Watson Class | ON 971 | Joseph Soar (Civil Service No.34) | |
| 1988–1993 | Solent Class | ON 1020 | 48-015 | Hugh William, Viscount Gough |
| 1993–1995 | Waveney Class | ON 1034 | 44-013 | Thomas James King |
| 1995–2008 | Trent Class | ON 1207 | 14-09 | Sir Ronald Pechell, Bt |
| 2008–present | Trent Class | ON 1266 | 14-35 | John Neville Taylor |
Station honours [link]
At Dunbar lifeboat station the following awards have been made:
- Framed Letters of Thanks 5
- Thanks of the Institution Inscribed on Vellum 2
- Bronze Medal 1
- Silver Medal 4
Flanking stations [link]
| Flanking stations to Dunbar Lifeboat Station | |||||||||||
Anstruther Lifeboat Station |
North Sea |
North Sea | |||||||||
| North Berwick Lifeboat Station |
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St Abbs Lifeboat Station |
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| Eyemouth Lifeboat Station |
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See also [link]
References [link]
- ^ https://www.rnli.org.uk/wcm/system/pages/downloadfile.aspx?filename=/assets/media/images/Rcrowther_Media/2009/8f675816-bb1f-405d-b47a-2666fe2e0a6b.doc RNLI official report on service
- ^ Leach, Nicholas (1999). For those in Peril. p. 204. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/1-85784-129-2|1-85784-129-2]].
External links [link]
https://wn.com/Dunbar_Lifeboat_Station
Dunbar
Coordinates: 56°00′10″N 2°31′01″W / 56.002725°N 2.516901°W
Dunbar (Scots [dʌnˈbaɾ]) is a town in East Lothian on the southeast coast of Scotland, approximately 28 miles (45 km) east of Edinburgh and 28 miles (45 km) from the English Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Dunbar is a former Royal Burgh and gave its name to an ecclesiastical and civil parish. The parish extends around 7½ miles east to west and is 3½ miles deep at greatest extent (12 x 5.5 kilometres) or 11¼ square miles (c. 3000 hectares) and contains the villages of West Barns, Belhaven, East Barns (abandoned) and several hamlets and farms.
Its strategic position gave rise to a history full of incident and strife but Dunbar has become a quiet dormitory town popular with workers in nearby Edinburgh, who find it an affordable alternative to the capital itself. Until the 1960s the population of the town was little more than 3,500.
The town is served by Dunbar railway station. Dunbar is home to the Dunbar Lifeboat Station, the second oldest RNLI station in Scotland.
Dunbar (ship)
The Dunbar was a full-rigged ship that was wrecked near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1857 with the loss of 121 lives.
The Dunbar was launched on 30 November 1853 for London shipowner Duncan Dunbar and entered the passenger and cargo trade between London and Sydney early the following year. She was one of a number of large sailing ships that began trading to Australia as a result of the Australian gold rushes.
On the night of 20 August 1857, the ship approached the entrance to Sydney Harbour from the south, but heavy rain and a strong gale made navigating difficult. The ship's captain, James Green, either erroneously believing he had already passed the harbour's southern headland or mistaking a smaller break in the coastline known as The Gap for the port's entrance, drove the ship onto rocks. The force of the gale caused the Dunbar to break up. Crew member James Johnson was thrown against the cliffs from the impetus of the collision and managed to scramble to safety, however he remained undiscovered for two days. The remainder of the passengers and crew were drowned. A day of public mourning was declared. The remains of the bodies of twenty-two victims were recovered and interred in a single large tomb in Camperdown Cemetery in Newtown. Several other victims have individual monuments.
Dunbar (surname)
Dunbar is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
Earls of Dunbar
- Agnes Dunbar, 4th Countess of Moray, wife of the above
