THE Whitby Lifeboat Station opened its doors to volunteers and friends to celebrate 50 years of having an inshore lifeboat, and 20 years of the all-weather lifeboat.

The current lifeboat crew and their families were invited to the station on Sunday to catch up with former crew members to chat about the history of the station and share nostalgic photographs.

The Whitby Lifeboat Station was one of the earliest to be established in 1802, and its first lifeboat was 31 feet and built by Henry Greathead of South Shields, the builder of the first lifeboat in 1789.

The station was taken over by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1861, and there have been four stations at Whitby over the years with the present station Whitby opening in 1919.

The two oldest former crew members Ronnie Frampton, 88 and Alan Marshall, 87, were thrilled to look around the current lifeboat, the George and Mary Webb, which has been in service in Whitby for 20 years this year.

Mr Marshall was a lifeboat crew member for eight years, joining when he was 34, and continued to be chairman of the Whitby branch for another 10 years.

He said: “It was a great privilege to be invited to the reception. One of the best parts for me was to meet who was left of the original crew – and after all these years to see the state-of-the-art boats and the modern building.

“I remember lots of incidents – we had to go out in all weather and sometimes it was pretty hairy, but adrenalin carried you on.”

He said not everyone respected the power of the sea, remembering rescuing a man and his young son who had gone out in a small dingy which lost its motor.

“They didn’t have lifejackets or any safety equipment – I asked him what on earth he was thinking,” he said.

“We had a good crew and we did a good job.”

Current coxswain Mike Russell said: "The anniversary of the inshore lifeboat is a poignant event. The fact that some of our old crew members are too ill to attend today reminds us that we are all merely custodian of the boats.

"The RNLI will remain in Whitby long after we are all gone, and continue to save lives at sea.”

He added that the inshore boat brought new possibilities to the crew in 1966, with the ability to launch quickly and reach inshore areas that the all-weather lifeboat could not reach.

The current inshore boat at Whitby, the OEM Stone III, is a valuable asset to the lifesaving crew.