Teddington Lifeboat Station 1.33

Teddington Lifeboat Station is a lifeboat station in Teddington, in west London, on the River Thames. It is one of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's (RNLI's) newest lifeboat stations and is also one of the first to cover a river rather than estuarial waters or the sea. Teddington Lock is the highest tidal point on the Thames.EstablishmentFollowing the collision in 1989 between the Marchioness and the 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. Since they already had operational duties, they approached the RNLI and asked if they could provide a rescue service.The RNLI recommended the creation of four lifeboat stations on the Thames to cover the tidal area between Teddington and the Channel. On 1 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 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 upon Thames within its operational area. In order to deal with this additional area, and to ensure operational effectiveness above and below Teddington Lock, Teddington is equipped with two "D Class" Lifeboats and unlike the other Thames stations, is run on a purely voluntary basis.