Solent Lifeboat “Shouts”
Calshot • Hamble • Cowes • Lymington
The Solent is one of the busiest stretches of water in the country, and four lifeboat crews cover it from close quarters: Calshot, Cowes and Lymington are RNLI stations, while Hamble Lifeboat is an independent charity doing the same job on the River Hamble and Southampton Water. Between them they launch on real rescues — a “shout” in lifeboat crew slang — on a near-daily basis across the Solent.
Each station’s official channels (linked below) are the best place to see their most recent shouts and rescue stories as they’re published. The RNLI also runs a live, national map of every launch across the UK and Ireland in the last 48 hours, fed directly from their crew pager system — well worth a look if you want to see whether any Solent station has just launched right now.
Click a marker to jump to that station below.
The Four Stations
Calshot RNLI
Calshot Spit, at the mouth of Southampton Water
Inshore lifeboat station established in 1970 (60 years of inshore lifeboats celebrated in 2023), currently operating an Atlantic 85 and a D class inshore lifeboat.
Hamble Independent
The Quay, Hamble-le-Rice, River Hamble
Hamble Lifeboat (formerly Hamble Rescue) has been an independent lifeboat charity since 1968, not part of the RNLI - the RNLI had no boat suited to this stretch of water at the time, so local residents ran their own. Still responds to the same Coastguard taskings; currently operates two Halmatic Pacific 32 RIBs.
Cowes RNLI
Watchhouse Lane, Cowes, Isle of Wight
Inshore lifeboat station currently operating the Atlantic 85 Sheena Louise, one of the fastest boats in the RNLI fleet at up to 35 knots.
Lymington RNLI
Bath Road, Lymington
Inshore lifeboat station since 1965 (60th anniversary in 2025), currently operating the Atlantic 85 David Bradley.
Where this data comes from: station details and lifeboat classes are drawn from each organisation’s own published information (RNLI and Hamble Lifeboat). Live launch-by-launch data isn’t reproduced here yet — the RNLI’s own live launches page (linked above) is the place to check right now, and each station’s own page is the best source for recent rescue write-ups.
See also: Port Information • Cruise Ship Schedule • Solent Weather Buoys • Solent & Dorset Beach Forecast