About Lifeboat Watch

Lifeboat Watch is an independent, unofficial hobby project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the RNLI, HM Coastguard, or any search and rescue organisation.

Positions come from publicly broadcast AIS, received mainly by terrestrial stations. That is typically tens of miles offshore, not a guaranteed 150-mile picture. Messages can be late, missing, or attached to the wrong name. A boat shown as underway may be on exercise, on passage, or away for maintenance. A boat shown as at station may already be at sea.

Nothing on this site confirms that a rescue is happening. Movements are labelled only as probable launches or returned. We do not publish casualty information, incident locations, or crew details.

How a probable launch is inferred

Each RNLI fleet boat is compared with its assigned station pin from RNLI Open Data. The rules are mechanical and can be wrong.

• A boat is treated as at home when it is within about 250 metres of that pin and moving slowly.
• A left station event is written when it moves beyond that radius at about 3 knots or more.
• An AIS awoke event is written when a boat that had been silent for about two hours is heard moving again from home — typical of a housed D-class or B-class.
• A sharp rise above about 8 knots from a non-underway state can also be recorded as a probable launch.
• A returned event is written when an underway boat is next seen slow and back inside the 250 metre circle.
• The same boat will not generate another launch or return for about 90 minutes.

Overnighting in another harbour for maintenance is not treated as a new home launch. A boat that stays away from its assigned station is one trip until it comes back inside that 250 metre circle. Other SAR vessels may be plotted for context; they are not given launch or return events.

Tracks are kept for about 30 days. You can watch a station from its page and confirm the address before any alert is sent. Every watch email includes an unsubscribe link. There are no social posts from this site.

Removal and support

If you are a station or crew member and want a vessel removed from this site, get in touch and it will be removed without argument.

If this project is useful to you, please support the lifeboat charity directly. This site takes no money and accepts no donations.