Name Sir William Arnold

1. What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric?

Evidence for designs, functions, techniques, processes, styles, customs and habits or uses and associations in relation to events and people.  How early, intact or rare these features are may impact on significance.

SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD was designed as an Arun class lifeboat, with a transom stern and semi-displacement hull, resulting in a faster type of vessel developed to replace the traditional 8 knot craft.  The design was drawn up for the RNLI by J.A. MacLachlan working for naval architects GL Watson of Glasgow and then refined by the RNLI following the prototype trials.  She was constructed of wood, triple laid for extra strength and fitted with an aluminium wheelhouse.  As the second in her class, adaptations were made based on trials undertaken with the first of the design.  SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD was given a lower freeboard aft than her predecessor to facilitate recovering survivors from the water, giving her barely 3 feet of freeboard amidships.  Her wheelhouse gave two separate cabins above deck and was fitted with a forward raked wheelhouse windscreen and a unique wheelhouse side window pattern.  She retained the aft mounted flying bridge.  A small inflatable lifeboat was carried for shallow water rescue, initially on the aft deck, but later on a gantry to the rear of the wheelhouse, launched by a crane.  Her engines were uprated to give enhanced performance and she was fitted with twin Caterpillar 6-cylinder diesel engines which she retains today.  Having undergone adaptation since leaving service and subsequent reconstruction work, she has been repainted in her original blue and any missing pieces of technology have been re-fitted or replaced with similar examples.  She was the first lifeboat to have a chart plotter added and the original survives in situ.

2. What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?

Associations with people or places. Off-ship research.

SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD, originally numbered Lifeboat 52-02, was the second Arun-class lifeboat built by William Osborne at Littlehampton and served as the Guernsey lifeboat for 24 years. She has strong associations with the island having been funded by a local campaign and named after the Bailiff in a ceremony involving the Duchess of Kent.  Rescues of international shipping included that of the Greek ship CANTONAD in 1979, the Liberian freighter RADIANT MED in 1984 and the French yacht MATAM in 1985.  Her most significant rescue was the Ecuadorian cargo vessel BONITA in 1981, when 29 people were saved from the sinking vessel in a force 12 gale for which RNLI gold and bronze medals were awarded.  In later life, she was used as the all-weather lifeboat for the Blyth Independent Rescue organisation.  SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD was launched over 500 times and saved 223 lives.  She is one of the most decorated lifeboats in the RNLI, earning her coxswains and crew a total of 15 gallantry medals and an array of awards from round the world.  She was featured as the 25p stamp in a series of six Guernsey post stamps issued in 1999 for the 175th Anniversary of the RNLI.   SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD was recorded on the National Register of Historic Vessels in 2023.

3. How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?

Overall aesthetic impact of the vessel, her lines, material she was built from and her setting.  Does she remain in her working environment?

SIR WILLIAM ARNOLD was built as a fast all-weather lifeboat and was an iconic and distinguished looking vessel in her distinctive RNLI livery.  Her twin Caterpillar engines enabled her to reach speeds of 19 knots, with fuel tanks having a 620 imperial gallon capacity, giving her the range of 250 nautical miles for which she was designed.   She is now maintained in operational condition and open to the public, based in Heybridge Basin, Essex.

Source: NHS-UK team, March 2024