Calshot Lifeboat Station

Calshot Lifeboat Station
RNLI Lifeboat station
Calshot Lifeboat Station
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Country	England
County	Hampshire
Region	South East England
District	New Forest
Village	Calshot
Location	Calshot Activity Centre, Calshot, Hampshire, SO45 1BR
- coordinates	50°49′12.8″N 1°18′30.1″W / 50.820222°N 1.308361°W / 50.820222; -1.308361Coordinates: 50°49′12.8″N 1°18′30.1″W / 50.820222°N 1.308361°W / 50.820222; -1.308361
Material	Masonry, Brick, on Concrete Stantions
Founded	1970
Owner	Royal National Lifeboat Institution
For public	classed as a Observe station by the RNLI
Location of Calshot Lifeboat station

Calshot Lifeboat Station is located on Calshot Spit near the village of Calshot, Hampshire, and is on the southern bank of the open end of Southampton Water, on the south coast of England. The station is owned and operated by the RNLI and currently operates two inshore lifeboats. They are an Atlantic 85 called Max Walls (B-860) and a D-class (IB1) called RNLB Willett (D-748).

Up until the 1960s the grounds on which the station is located at Calshot split had been the site of RAF Calshot which was used by the RAF as its main seaplane/flying boat development and training unit in the UK. The base was closed in 1961 and after the RAF had left, Hampshire County Council opened an Education Sea and Land based Activities Centre. The centre was constantly being asked by HM coastguard to use its boats to go out and rescue people in trouble off shore. The administrators of the centre decided that they would contact the RNLI with a view to there being a more formalised rescue service for this busy stretch of water. The RNLI spent a year evaluating this proposition and with a result opened a lifeboat station on the site in 1970.

The first lifeboat to be stationed at Calshot was a 40 ft (12 m) Keith Nelson-type lifeboat which had the operation number of 40-001. She was called Ernest William and Elizabeth Ellen Hinde (ON 1017) and was essentially an experimental GRP constructed lifeboat and she cost £24,559.

The second lifeboat at the station was the Brede-class lifeboat called RNLB Safeway (ON 1104). The lifeboat was kept at a moorings just of Calshot Castle. The crew used a davit launched boarding boat when called out on service. She was built for the RNLI by Lochin Marine at Newhaven, East Sussex in 1985. Like the Keith Nelson-type she had a Glass reinforced plastic (GRP) hull and had a watertight GRP cabin which gave the boat a self-righting capability. Funding for the lifeboat came from Safeway stores hence her name "Safeway", and she stayed on service at Calshot until December 2001 when she was withdrawn from service. She was replaced by the former Poole based Brede "Inner Wheel" which was at the station for only a few months before being replaced by an Arun-class boat. The Brede-class lifeboat service was short-lived as the class was not considered to be suitable in rough seas and to stress limitations in the GRP hull.