As part of the 2024 Mayday Mile fundraising efforts for the RNLI Team Dunmore East has been working away to raise donations towards this vital cause in a coastal community.
This year my wife Deena and I have contributed by walking at least a mile a day for the month of May. We have kept a daily log on the fundraising page, but also a visual record here on the blog.
To conclude the month today we have a guest blog from our lifeboat expert and regular guest blogger David Carroll. David provides a quick run through the boats that have served the area with distinction for 140 years this coming July.
It’s all about raising those necessary funds to keep the vital service that is our local RNLI. So if you would like to make a contribution you can do so, by visiting our donation page here. You might also prefer to give directly to the team page – or some of the other team members. The page for the Team Dunmore East is here.
Dunmore East RNLI Lifeboats 1884-2024
On November 1st 1882 the RNLI’s Chief Inspector of Lifeboats, Captain HW Chetwynd, RN and the District Inspector for Ireland, Lt Tipping RN, visited the Dunmore East. They decided that Dunmore East would be the best location for a new Lifeboat Station to protect the busy approaches to Waterford and New Ross. A site was chosen, beside the existing Coastguard boathouse in the village on land belonging to the Board of Works. The construction of the new boathouse and slipway was constructed by F Kent at a cost of £613- 5-0.
Henry Dodd 1884- 1911
The first lifeboat stationed at Dunmore East was the Henry Dodd. It was a 37ft x 9ft, a 12 oared self-righting lifeboat, built by the firm of T&W Forrestt of Limehouse in London. The cost was £394-10-0. The new lifeboat was provided out of a legacy from the late Mr H Dodd, of Rothersfield, in Sussex.
In June 1884, the new lifeboat was sent by rail to Bristol and brought to Waterford aboard the Waterford Steamship Company’s SS Reginald and was placed on station on July 7th, 1884.
Official Number (ON): 101
Period: 1884- 1911
Launches: 10
Lives: 16
Fanny Harriet 1911 -1914
On September 21st, 1911 a new lifeboat arrived. The cost of the boat was reported as £1,107. It was built by the Thames Ironworks Co., and was of the self-righting type, 37 feet long, with 9ft 3in beam, and fitted with two water ballast tanks and two drop-keels. The boat was named Fanny Harriet in accordance with the wishes of the late Miss F.H. Roe, of Bath.
The new boat was only stationed in Dunmore for less than three years and was only launched once on active service during that time. However, that one time was one of the most courageous and dramatic rescues that has taken place off the Irish coast and consequently the name of Fanny Harriet and that of coxswain Walter Power have lived long in the memory in Dunmore East and further afield. That prolonged rescue was of course the shout to assist the Norwegian schooner Mexico and the surviving crew of the Helen Blake from the neighbouring lifeboat station at Fethard.
Fanny Harriet was transferred to the Holyhead No 2 Station in Anglesey, North Wales where it gave many more years of service.
ON: 617
Period: 1911 -1914
Launches: 1
Lives: 2
Michael Henry 1914 -1919
RNLI had begun a series of trials from 1904 to fit petrol engines to existing sail and row lifeboats. One such lifeboat was the Michael Henry, which was stationed at Newhaven in Sussex, England. When Newhaven received a new motor lifeboat in 1912, the Michael Henry was taken to a boatyard and fitted with a new motor engine. On March 12th, 1914, this lifeboat was then sent to Dunmore East.
The Michael Henry had been built in 1897 by the boatyard of Thames Ironworks at a cost of £728. The boat had been provided out of the ‘Jewish Scholars Lifeboat Fund.’
In 1919, the Michael Henry was condemned as unfit for further service and the station was temporarily closed. It remained closed until 1925.
ON: 407
Period: 1914 -1919
Launches: 3
Lives: 4
C and S 1925 -1940
In 1921, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution announced that a new lifeboat was to be built for the station, but it was 1925 before it was ready.
The new lifeboat was called the C and S in honour of two benefactors, one a gift from the Executors of the Estate of the late Mr Peter Coats and the other a legacy form Miss Emily Smart of Ranelagh, Dublin.
The Waterford News reported the arrival of the new lifeboat at the end of March 1925 as follows:
“Dunmore East has just received a handsome addition in the shape of a new lifeboat, which arrived last weekend from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. The boat is 40 feet long by 15 feet beam, and is of the modern type, fitted with a 90 horse-power motor engine and capable of a speed under power of from 9 to 10 knots per hour. The cost of the vessel is estimated at nine thousand pounds….”
The C and S lifeboat, which served Dunmore East with distinction from 1925 until 1940 was then re-allocated to Pwllheli in North Wales. In 1946, when Valentia Lifeboat Station was re-established, the C and Swas sent to that station.
ON: 690
Period: 1925 -1940
Launches: 12
Lives: 31
Annie Blanche Smith 1940-1970
On March 15th, 1940, a new Watson class lifeboat arrived at Dunmore East. It was the Annie Blanche Smith, called after Mrs AB Smith, one of three persons from London whose legacies funded the purchase. The new lifeboat had been built by JS White at Cowes at a cost of £10,279 and was 46 feet in length and equipped with two 40 BHP diesel engines, giving the lifeboat a top speed of 8 knots and it also had a radio. Annie Blanche Smith was one of a very few lifeboats to take up station duties during the Second World War. She was also the station’s first lifeboat with twin engines.
David has profiled one of the most dramatic rescues by the vessel when the crew went to save their fellow villagers aboard the St Declan in 1950
ON: 830
Period: 1940-1970
Launches: 88
Lives: 89
Douglas Hyde 1970-1972
In October 1970, the Annie Blanche Smith was replaced at Dunmore East by the former Rosslare Harbour Lifeboat Douglas Hyde. The Douglas Hyde was a 46’ 9” ‘Watson’ type lifeboat, originally built in 1951 at a cost of £33,196. Before being sent to Dunmore East, the lifeboat was fully upgraded.
The Douglas Hyde had become a world-famous lifeboat due to the heroic part it had played in November 1954, when rescuing seven survivors from the oil tanker World Concord bound from Liverpool to Syria, broke in half in a severe gale in the St George’s Channel.
ON: 896
Period: 1970-1972
Launches: 12
Lives: 5
Dunleary ΙΙ 1972-73
In 1973, the RNLB Dunleary ΙΙ, was stationed at Dunmore East as a replacement for the Douglas Hyde. It was another vessel with a celebrated history. It had been stationed at Dún Laoghaire from 1938 until 1967. During that time, it was launched on 138 occasions and saved 145 lives.
ON: 814
Period: 1972-1973
Launches: 8
Lives: 4
Euphrosyne Kendal 1973-1975
On June 5th, 1973, the Euphrosyne Kendal, a 52-ft Barnett-type lifeboat, under the command of Inspector of Lifeboats in Ireland, Lt. Commander Brian Miles, arrived at Dunmore East. The Waterford News and Star reported that Douglas Hyde had been withdrawn from service as “she no longer fulfils the high standards demanded throughout these islands by the RNLI.” The newspaper went on to state that a new 44-ft Waveney steel lifeboat, like the one stationed in Dun Laoghaire, had been promised for Dunmore East.
The Euphrosyne Kendal was built in 1954 and up until 1972, was stationed at St Peter Port in Guernsey, Channel Islands. Before being sent the Dunmore East, the vessel was completely overhauled and fitted with new twin 70hp diesel engines.
On the night of January 13th/ 14th, 1975, the RNLB Euphrosyne Kendal under Coxswain Stephen Whittle was involved in the dramatic rescue of the crew of seven from the motor vessel Michael (see pp 5-6 of the link) which was drifting with engine trouble and listing to port in a violent south-south- westerly storm gusting to hurricane force.
ON: 912
Period: 1973-1975
Launches: 10
Lives: 7
St Patrick 1975-1996
In March 1975, Dunmore East RNLI received the promised 44ft Waveney class lifeboat named St Patrick. It had been built by Groves & Guttridge, in Cowes and was funded from the Irish Lifeboat Appeal of 1974 to mark the 150th anniversary of the RNLI. The Waveney class lifeboat was the first class of lifeboats operated by the RNLI that was capable of operating at speeds in excess of 10 knots. They were based on a United States design and twenty-two of them saw operational service around the coasts of the UK and Ireland, between 1964 and 1999.
In her 21 years at Dunmore East, St Patrick was launched 252 times and is credited with saving 83 lives. (Maybe because of my age, and that it played out on radio and TV at the time, the shout I most remember the St Patrick with was the Fastnet race of 1979)
Between 1996 and 1999, the entire Waveney fleet was replaced as the newly designed Trent and Severn lifeboats came into service. Many of the Waveney class boats were sold on for further use, notably in Australia and New Zealand. In 1999, the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol in New SouthWales purchased St Patrick.
ON: 1035
Op. No. 44-014
Period: 1975-1996
Launches: 252
Lives: 83
Elizabeth and Ronald 1996-2021
The new boat, due to replace the St Patrick, was a 14-metre self-righting Trent class boat, with a hull moulded in FRC (Fibre Reinforced Composite) driven by two 800hp ‘Man’ diesel engines and having a top speed of 25 knots. It was placed on service at Dunmore East on October 7th, 1996.
The new boat, Elizabeth and Ronald, with a Lifeboat Operation Number of 1215, cost £1,250,000 to build, which had been provided out a legacy from the late Mrs EM Manners-Clarke from Surrey. At that time, it was the fourth Trent lifeboat to be stationed in Ireland, with other boats of this class being at Arklow, Courtmacsherry and Dun Laoghaire.
For twenty-five years, Elizabeth and Ronald continued to give outstanding service to the station but was badly damaged after an accient in the harbour in late 2017. Shewas taken to Falmouth in Cornwall for a refit and repairs and did not return home to Dunmore until January 2019, when it received a warm and rapturous homecoming by the entire community.
ON: 1215
Op. No. 14-17
Period: 1996-2021
Launches: 413
Lives: 20
People Rescued: 718
People Aided: 826 (Statistics per RNLI)
William and Agnes Wray 2021- to present
On Sunday, September 26th, 2001, a new 13 metre Shannon class lifeboat arrived in Dunmore East harbour at precisely 13.41 hrs, matching the operational number she carries on her bow. Costing £2.4 million, the William and Agnes Wray was brought to Ireland by a crew of six from the RNLI’s All-Weather Lifeboat Centre in Poole, Dorset.
The Shannon is the latest class of all-weather lifeboat to join the RNLI fleet, being the first modern all-weather lifeboat to be propelled by waterjets instead of traditional propellers, making the Shannon the most agile and manoeuvrable all-weather lifeboat.
The new lifeboat was funded from the legacy of Ms Olive Wray, who lived in Conwy, North Wales and passed away in 2018. William and Agnes Wray were her parents-in-law. Ms Wray also donated a D class inshore lifeboat, stationed in 2019 at Cardigan in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
ON: 1348
Op. No. 13-41
Period: 2021 – Present
Launches: 33 to May 9th 2024
People Aided: 40
Note: ON stands for Official Number and Op. No. stands for Operational Number.
My thanks to David for supporting the Mayday mile effort again this year. One of his contributions last year was a recollection about the death of two Brownstown natives who went to the rescue of French seafarers. Arising from David’s research the names of both fishermen, Thomas Crotty and John Fitzgerald, have now been added to the Lost at Sea Memorial Wall in Dunmore East. Thanks to all involved.
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Lovely read, thanks to David for the narrative and of course Andrew for sharing
Thanks Kev, hope to do some more like this for posterity given the year that’s in it