HRH The Duke of Kent will be visiting Exmouth Lifeboat Station tomorrow.
His Royal Highness The Duke of Kent who is the President of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), will be meeting the charity’s Exmouth volunteers at the five year old boathouse on Queens Drive.
The Duke, who is due to arrive at 2pm tomorrow afternoon, will change into yellow personal protective equipment and board the state-of-the-art all-weather lifeboat, R and J Welburn. The Shannon Launch and Recovery System (SLARS) together with R and J Welburn will advance along the beach to a suitable launching location. The crew volunteers with the Duke on board will launch to perform manoeuvres off Exmouth beach. Exmouth RNLI Coxswain, Steve Hockings-Thompson will demonstrate a beach landing, close to the lifeboat station before recovery to the boathouse.
The Duke will continue his visit by meeting station, fundraising and shop volunteers inside the boathouse to hear about their commitment to the charity that saves lives at sea.
Kevin Riley MBE is the Lifeboat Operations Manager at Exmouth RNLI. He says;
‘The station are looking forward to displaying the capabilities of our 21st century lifeboat to the Duke of Kent. We know that he has shown great interest in the developmental stages of the Shannon during the project and we can’t wait to demonstrate the water jet experience to him at sea. The Duke has also visited local Devon company Supacat Ltd who manufactured the launch and recovery vehicle, so he’ll be interested to see our shore crew volunteers at work with this new system.’
HRH The Duke of Kent has been President of the RNLI since 1969. He succeeded both his parents as President of the charity. The last time he visited Exmouth lifeboat station was in 1996 when he was invited to name the station’s Forward Birmingham Trent class lifeboat, which the generous people of Birmingham helped fund. His Royal Highness also named Exmouth’s Brede class lifeboat Caroline Finch with his wife, HRH The Duchess of Kent, in 1984.
