The start of the year saw the launch of an appeal by The Portishead Lifeboat Trust to raise £750,000 to fund the construction of a new boathouse near the Portishead Quays marina.

The current boathouse is on land leased from the Portishead Yacht & Sailing club. Although this boathouse has served us well since we started operations, it has a few shortfalls:

• The boathouse is only just wide enough to accommodate the boat. This makes getting the boat in and out of the boathouse awkward
• There is extremely limited space in the boathouse for anything other than the boat and launching tractor
• Given the position of the boathouse, the tractor has to execute a 90° turn in an extremely confined space to launch the lifeboat
• The slipway and beach are used by the public. This can cause delays to launching the lifeboat as the Health & Safety of the general public is paramount to the Trust

The proposed new boathouse will provide the following facilities which are currently not available to the crew and Operations team:

• Changing rooms and storage facilities for crew kit
• Showering facilities
• An office which can be used as an Operations centre while the lifeboat is launched on service
• A training room
• Casualty reception facilities

In addition, the lifeboat will be launched down a slipway on rails, and recovered using a high speed winch. This will make launching and recovering the lifeboat much safer and faster.

Everyone involved with the Trust realises that this is an ambitious start to the year, but by approaching local businesses, and moving further afield to national agencies and fund raising companies, we hope that we can reach the target and relocate.

If you would like to help the Trust by making a donation, it can be sent to our office at 108 High Street, Portishead, North Somerset. BS20 9AJ

For more information, please email