Established in 1803, Arbroath has one of the oldest Lifeboat stations in Scotland. Little is known of Arbroath's early history as records only exist from the time the station was taken over by the Institution from the local Lifeboat Committee in 1865.

The RNLI lifeboat station in Arbroath was the sixth busiest in Scotland in 2008 and the crew, all from the local community, were involved in 46 search and rescues, helping to rescue 27 people last year. 

The 30 crew at Arbroath are among 880 lifeboat crew in Scotland, of whom 832 are volunteers. At Arbroath the crew include a fisherman, offshore workers, machine operators and a paramedic.  The RNLI believes that without the commitment and dedication of volunteers, like those at Arbroath, the RNLI’s role of saving lives at sea would be impossible.

Arbroath lifeboat station is one of the oldest in Scotland. The first lifeboat was built by Henry Greathead who, appropriately called ‘The Original’, was the first boat to be designed and built for the purpose of saving life from shipwreck, was in service for 40 years and saved hundreds of lives. 

Today Arbroath is one of 45 lifeboat stations around Scotland which between them operate 53 lifeboats. These lifeboats launched a total of 967 times in 2008 and rescued a record 672 people around the coast of Scotland last year - which on average, is one person every eight and a half hours.

The RNLI is a charity that provides a lifesaving service at sea (up to 100 nautical miles) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a charity the RNLI relies on public donations to help train and equip its volunteer lifeboat crews.

On 27th of October 1953 six of the seven crew of the Arbroath lifeboat "Robert Lindsay" drowned when the boat capsized in Arbroath Harbour just before dawn, after a fruitless all-night search with the Anstruther lifeboat for the source of flares reported by Elie Coastguard. Returning to station, she attempted to run before the seas into harbour but went over. The only survivor, local fisherman Archie Smith, managed to grab a rocket line fired from the shore. It was widely surmised at the time that the distress flares had been fired by the Dundee sand ship Island magee, which was lost that week with her crew of six, on passage from Dundee to Leith.

We do not keep a record of the disaster here but a full account can be found at http://www.dmcsoft.com/tamh/tour.php?tourid=11&page=1

The Arbroath Lifeboat Tragedy
by Fred Dallas.

Oh listen while I tell you of the Arbroath tragedy
Of how six gallant lifeboatmen were thrown into the sea
On October twenty seven in the year of fifty three
And only one brave man was saved in that calamity

The night was dark and stormy and the lifeboat standing by
And all at once a rocket jumped into the angry sky
The "Robert Lindsay" ventured out to find the reason why
But nothing could they find that night no matter how they tried

Four hours they searched that Tuesday morn until the break of day
But not a bit of wreckage could they find in Arbroath bay
"It's home and mugs of cocoa for us sailors while we may
Or else we'll never see the shore," they heard the Cox'n say

As they came back across the bar it was an awful sight
The lifeboat overturned them in the sea as black as night
They couldn't reach the shore alive though struggle as they might
And only Archie Smith was saved upon that dreadful night

Two brothers sank beneath the waves, a father and a son
The bowman, Thomas Adams went the way that they had gone
And when the boat was washed ashore beneath the morning sun
The Cox'n, David Bruce, was lash'd the steering wheel upon

So let's remember all the men who go down to the sea
And all their wives and sweethearts dear wherever they may be
And working men who give their lives in dire necessity
The fishermen who died that night in Nineteen Fifty-Three

"Following the disaster the boat was repaired and was put into service at Girvan from 1955 to 1960. Later she was moved to north Wales to the Criccieth station where she remained for seven years from 1961 till 1968. She was then taken out of service and was sold in 1969 for £827 to a Devon owner. A Mr Forester, a fisherman in a small village near Lowestoft acquired her in 1986 and renamed her “ Zephyr”. About 1999 she was sold and now operates on the Norfolk Broads as a leisure craft. It was in 1986 that the cockpit of the boat was removed and presented to the Lowestoft & East Suffolk Maritime Museum where it is the centrepiece of lifeboat artefacts."

(The above record of the Robert Lindsay is taken from http://www.theshoppie.com/ website)

The list of Honorary Secretaries to have served Arbroaths Lifeboat is detailed on a board in the station, a picture of it can be seen to the right.