DARTMOUTH has a new lifeboat arriving tomorrow, July 9, and the Dart RNLI team has invited the town to welcome her into port as she arrives by sea at 5pm.

Boat owners can meet the new Atlantic 85 B class boat in the Dart estuary as she’s escorted to the town pontoon by other lifeboats from the area. And onlookers onshore can wave her into Dartmouth.

Dartmouth volunteer firefighters are hoping to provide a water arch and the film crew from ‘Saving Lives at Sea’ will also be on the river. It’s planned to include the pictures of the arrival in an episode centred on Dart and Torbay RNLI to be shown shortly. There will be a naming ceremony of the new lifeboat later in the year.

A Dart RNLI spokesperson said: “It would be wonderful if as many boat owners afloat and onlookers onshore could be there to welcome her. Normally Atlantic 85 B class lifeboats are delivered to the lifeboat station by road but, on this occasion, the Dart volunteers are bringing her by sea from the Lifeboat College in Poole.” The spokesperson said the current Dart RNLI Atlantic 85, B-825, will be replaced by the new lifeboat B-931, which has been built at the RNLI inshore lifeboat centre in East Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

They added: “She’s undergone her sea trials and is waiting to be collected from the RNLI College in Poole. Richard Eggleton (helm), Ewen Menzies, Yorkie Lomas and Mark Conroy will drive up to the College on Friday and bring her back by sea for the three and a half-hour journey to the lifeboat station at Lyme Regis, where they will refuel and handover to the second crew from Dart RNLI.

“Depending on sea conditions they expect to travel at 20 kn, considerably less than the lifeboat’s maximum speed of 35 kn. The second crew of Richard Eggleton (helm), Hayden Glanville, Tom Shanley and Caleb Brown, will bring her back to Dartmouth some one and a half hours later to be met by the all-weather severn class lifeboat from Torbay and the two Dart inshore lifeboats.

“It is possible that a vintage lifeboat will also escort her up the river at 5pm. Any other boat owners are welcome to meet them in the Dart estuary and accompany them up-river to a berth on the town pontoon.”