VIDEO: Montrose’s new lifeboat puts on a show-stopping performance
ByRichard Watt
Scotland’s first in a line of revolutionary lifeboats reached its new Angus home with a fanfare today.
The RNLB Ian Grant Smith wowed crowds at Montrose Port by accelerating at full throttle before coming to a total stop with its water jets.
The Shannon class is the first of the RNLI’s all-weather lifeboats to be powered by water-jets rather than traditional propellers, making it the most agile and manoeuvrable lifeboat in the charity’s fleet.
Hundreds of onlookers were there to see the Ian Grant Smith number 13-10 arrive at its new home.
The new lifeboat is 50% faster than RNLB Moonbeam, the Tyne class she will replace.
Coxswain Scott Murray said the boat represents “a huge leap forward” in lifeboat design.
The boat is named after Ian Grant Smith, whose widow Ruth Grant Smith died in 2005 and bequeathed the boat’s cost to the RNLI.