When the Richard and Caroline Colton arrived in Hastings on Saturday local people turned out in force to welcome the town’s brand new Shannon class lifeboat.

It’s been three decades since Hastings has had a new lifeboat. When the Mersey Class Sealink Endeavour came to Hastings 30 years ago who would have guessed then that it would go on to become the RNLI’s longest serving station lifeboat.

Crowds of people flocked to the beach to see the new hi-tech, state-of-the-art Shannon Class lifeboat arrive, it’s been undergoing extensive trials since being completed in July.

We thought we’d take a look around the internet to see what we could find about Hastings RNLI and we unearthed a number of videos on You Tube and we’ve selected these five, the first one in particular, just titled ‘Hastings Lifeboat’ is one we particularly enjoyed.

This great video published by Glenn Veness in February 2014 is a fantastic journey through the ages, starting off with a rowing boat being launched from the beach by hand. It includes some great close-ups of the men who have crewed the boats down the years and shows the kind of conditions the lifeboat is often required to work in.

Published by ‘Kentphotopics’ in July 2016 this video shows off some great aerial filming. Set to Pleasure by Dezrok the film follows the launch from Hastings beach of what, even then, was the RNLI’s oldest lifeboat, the Mersey Class Sealink Endeavour. The film follows the boat out to sea and ends with some great shots across the beach to the East Hill and of the harbour arm

Or what about this one published by ‘Stuff2share’ in May 2010 showing in some detail a launch off the western side of the harbour arm.

Published by Tom Mitchell in 2014 this video ends rather abruptly half-way through but it does bring home what the lifeboat crew is expected to do as Captain Tom Warne explains: “…if we do get a service call… nine times out of ten it’s quite a serious one.”

And coming bang up to date the new Hastings Shannon class Lifeboat departing on sea trials in July this year. This boat replaces the Hastings Mersey Class Lifeboat Sealink Endeavour, the RNLI’s longest serving station lifeboat of recent times, on station for 30 years. The old Hastings Lifeboat outlived its fundraisers Sealink British Ferries! Now Stena Line.

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• https://hastingsinfocus.co.uk/2018/10/14/hastings-new-shannon-class-lifeboat-welcomed-to-it-new-home/