St Mary with St Alban

Teddington is one of the RNLI’s newest lifeboat stations and is also one of the first to cover a river rather than estuarial waters or the sea. Following the tragic collision in 1989 between the Marchioness and dredger Bowbelle that resulted in the loss of 51 lives, the ‘Thames Safety Inquiry’ recommended a centrally coordinated Search and Rescue presence on the Thames. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) was chosen to coordinate the services that already existed on the Thames however, because they already had operational duties, they approached the RNLI and asked if they could provide a ‘Rescue’ service.

The RNLI recommended the creation of 4 Lifeboat stations on the Thames to cover the tidal area between Teddington and The English Channel. On 1st January 2002 Teddington lifeboat station became fully operational. It was thought that the lifeboat stations on the Thames would have to deal with approximately 50 call outs or ‘shouts’ per year. However, in the first year of operation there were over 800 call outs. In fact the Thames lifeboat stations accounted for 10% of the total number of ‘shouts’ that the RNLI responded to.

Although Teddington is not the busiest Thames station it was quickly realised that their presence should extend further ‘upstream’ to Molesey Lock, thereby including Kingston within its operational area. In order to deal with this additional area, and to ensure operational effectiveness above and below Teddington Lock, Teddington was equipped with 2 ‘D Class’ Lifeboats.

There are currently 15 voluntary crew members. Contrary to public belief they are not all salty sea dogs, actually very few are, and their numbers contain engineers, bankers and designers. In fact, very few members have any professional sea-faring experience. They train every week on a Tuesday night from 7pm in order to achieve the high standards of competence and safety that have always been the hallmarks of the RNLI’s lifesaving service. 

In the event of a call-out or ‘shout’, every crew member’s pager is simultaneously activated by the London Coastguard.  24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, the crew aim to launch one or both boats depending on the nature of the incident within six minutes of the call to the Coastguard. Their operational target is to be on scene within 15 minutes of the original call. This can be tight if the incident is in Molesey.

If you live within 3 minutes of Teddington Lock and would like to find out about getting involved then please call 020 8973 0586. New crew members are always welcome.  For more information about the RNLI station at Teddington please visit: www.rnli.org.uk/rnli_near_you/east/stations/TeddingtonMiddlesex/

If you see an incident on the Thames ‘Dial’ 999 (or 112 European Emergency Number) and ask for the London Coastguard.