RNLI

Green Marine has had a long and successful relationship with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). To date we have built over 100 Lifeboats and also carry out refits on the Mersey class lifeboat.

It was the awarding of a very new type of contract that started Green Marine on the road to building for the RNLI. Back in the mid ‘80s we were asked to look at an ambitious design for a landing craft capable of 40 knots that had to be a good sea boat and carry 12 soldiers. With the help of composite materials suppliers and engineering consultants, SP Systems, Green Marine took on the work.

Military landing craft - Smuggler

The boat was a huge success with her owners and proved important in SP Systems pitch to the RNLI for a new generation of lifeboats.

Lured by the prospect of lighter, faster boats the RNLI were also impressed by Green Marine’s practical experience with modern sandwich construction for race boats. They awarded us a contract and in 1988 our first Fast Carriage Boat (Mersey) was launched. That marked the start of a production run of 26 more boats in just 4 years.

Next came the contracts to build the new Severn and Trent class lifeboats – of which over 80 have been completed to date. The RNLI call these boats 'all-weather craft' and they’re not kidding. They operate in the waters of some of Europe’s most inhospitable coastline, leaving port when everyone else is looking for shelter.

Each boat has over 100mm thick foam cored topsides, single laminate double hull bottom, 4 water-tight bulkheads and prepreg epoxy glass/Kevlar laminates – these boats are built to last and are likely to see out their 25 year service life with ease. In service now for 12 years they have proved to be extremely resilient and damage resistant so far.

In 1999 Green Marine was delighted to be appointed builder of the experimental version of the new Fast Slipway Boat - now called the Tamar class - the latest addition to the RNLI fleet. The Tamar design is for a 25 knot, 28 tonne fibre reinforced composite boat to replace the RNLI's Tyne class slipway launched lifeboat.

Some of the Green Marine builders who worked on the prototype out for test run

Without doubt lifeboat crews are amongst our most demanding customers – they operate in the most demanding of conditions and not surprisingly expect the highest standards for their craft.

The pre-production boat will go to DML in Plymouth for fitting-out and is due to hit the water at the end of summer ‘04. Work will start on the first of four production boats in early 2004 and these will be completed during the course of 2004 and early 2005 with an expected build time of 5 months each.

New one-piece deck mould being released from the timber plug. The deck and superstructure has been laminated as a solid one piece glass mould – using epoxy Sprint materials.

We don’t just build new lifeboats – we also service and refit many of the boats we built years before: the Mersey class boats have a re-fit every 5 years and this involves the boat returning to one of our Lymington factories where she is taken completely apart, all the fittings come off and the engines are removed and sent off for a total overhaul. A re-fit averages 12 weeks and during that time we make any necessary repairs, service all of the equipment and carry out any modifications. We then re-paint the entire boat, inside and out, and all of the fittings prior to reassembly. Once this is complete the boat goes back into the water and the engines and electronics are commissioned. She then undergoes a day of close scrutiny by an RNLI inspector and is declared “passed out and ready for operational use”. Only then does she return to her station.

Mersey Class Lifeboat

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RNLI Projects

FINAL SEVERN CLASS LIFEBOAT LEAVES GREEN MARINE
After a total of 46 boats built the final Severn Class Lifeboat left Green Marine’s Waterloo Road factory on Monday 15th December 2003.

It was back in 1992 that the RNLI awarded the contract for 46 Severn Class lifeboats to Green Marine; over that 11 year period our workforce has more than trebled. There are now some 60 people, 50% of our staff, working directly on RNLI projects. At the peak of production 8 Severn Class boats left our Lymington workshop in a single 12 month period.

On Thursday 11th December many of the people who have been involved with the Severn Class builds from both the RNLI and Green Marine gathered under the hull in the factory for a celebration drink and farewell to the project.

Green Marine & RNLI celebrate

The final hull travelled by road from Green Marine to Berthon in Lymington for fitting out. Once finished extensive sea trials will be carried out before she takes up her post as a Relief Lifeboat – available to whichever station needs her.

RNLI Hull squeezes through Lymington

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RNLI FCB2
The new RNLI FCB2 (Fast Carriage Boat) Experimental boat is being built at Green Marine – Lymington. The boat is based on a Camarc designed hull and will have two CAT 3126B engines and Hamilton water jets. She will ultimately replace the Mersey class boats around 2007/8.

Building the hull mould for the new FCB2

Hull inner skin looking forwards

Inner skin looking forwards

Ring frames

Basic dimensions
Length OA 13.6m
Length WL 11.45m
Beam OA 4.54
Draught 0.75m
Height 4.0m

We have now completed the hull and deck shells, and are now fitting bulkheads, engine and longitudinal stiffeners. The plan is to have the basic boat structure finished by the end of August. Green Marine have had the opportunity to input our extensive knowledge and experience of composite structures into this project at an early stage and have provided all the 3D modelling, drawing work and composite engineering. We have developed a very clean simple structure that has been efficient to build and that will be economic to build in production.