Southport Lifeboat Naming Ceremony and Blessings of the 'Christopher Taylor' Lifeboat

ON Saturday, 21 April 2018, Southport Lifeboat crew held a parade from the Lifeboat Station to the Waterside Lodge, on the Marine Lake, along with a Naming Ceremony and Blessing of their new Lifeboat, the:- 'Christoper Taylor.'  The new craft, with call sign Southport ILB, is a Model RNLI IB1 D-Class Lifeboat, that has a crew of 2 to 4 and can hit a top speed of 25 Knots (about 29 mph) thanks to its 50HP Mariner Engine.

The  craft has an endurance time of 3 hours and is equipped with Garmin VHF and DSC, AIS systems, and GPS. It was built in 2016 by the RNLI at the Inshore Lifeboat Centre in Cowes, Isle of White and replaces the old ILB, which was nearly 30 years old, and had been used by Southport since 2005. 

The 'Christoper Taylor' is now on station and is a fully declared facility, with the Maritime Coastguard Agency. Currently, the craft is acting as the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust's main Lifeboat, as the 'Heather White' is presently away, in the Netherlands, undergoing a major refit, following 11 years of active service with the Trust. The main usage of the 'Christopher Taylor' will be to cover inshore waters around Southport Pier and the Marine Lake.

The name of the craft:- 'Christoper Taylor' was given to it, as the Trustee Directors of the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust (SORT) decided to dedicated it to a 21 year old student, from Southport:- 'Christoper Taylor' who sadly lost his life, in the River Avon, in January 2014. At the Naming Ceremony and Blessing, were his family and friends, who got to meet the crews and also to see the craft, which will keep his memory with us and make a difference to peoples’ lives along the way.

THE funding of the new craft is with thanks to donations from the public and also a Department of Transport grant, which paid for ˝ of the costs. It is worth noting that it costs approximately ₤60,000 per year to keep the service operational, but unlike the RNLI, this service is fully independent. That means it gets no funding from the RNLI and is solely dependent on local donations, to keep it running 24/7 365 days a year. All involved, from Trustees, Directors, Crews and Shop Staff, do this fully unpaid. If you want to help the service to keep afloat or to get involved, please visit:- Southport-Lifeboat.Org.UK to find out more. You can also donate or buy from the Trust's charity shop, on Everton Road, Southport (PR8 4BT).

After the event Southport Lifeboat's Trustees officially announced that the service will soon be moving to a new home, after years of negotiations to build a new Lifeboat Station. To find out more about this announcement, please read the report we ran in the previous edition, by clicking on here.

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