Isle of Skye RNLI Coxswain Retires After 35 Years of Lifesaving Service

A volunteer Coxswain at the Isle of Skye RNLI lifeboat station has turned off his pager and retired from duty after 35 years of active service.

Hamish Corrigall, a native of Skye, signed up to join the crew in October 1990 and was officially enrolled on 1 November 1990. Hamish was one of the very first people to be part of the crew when the first lifeboat arrived on station in the Spring of 1991.

The Waveney class relief lifeboat Connel Elizabeth Cargill was the first lifeboat to be stationed at Portree RNLI, before another Waveney-class lifeboat, Ralph and Joy Swann, took over as the permanent lifeboat.

Hamish recalls the day he decided to join the volunteer crew:

‘The RNLI came to Portree in October 1990 with a view to installing a lifeboat service either in Portree or Uig. They had a bit of paper for people to add their names to who were interested in joining a crew, and I decided to put my name down. I was officially enrolled in November 1990 and joined the RNLI for what would become 35 years of service.’

In 1996, with the arrival of the current Trent class lifeboat Stanley Watson Barker,Hamish took on the role as a volunteer Coxswain.

In July 2013, Hamish became the full-time volunteer Coxswain at the station, which meant always being on call and having the pager beside him throughout his daily life.

Despite a strong family connection to fishing and the sea, Hamish had initially planned to follow a different career path:

‘Before I left school, I had no interest in working at sea. I was due to be a boatbuilder alongside my uncle. But my uncle passed away before I could start and this plan fell through. It was decided that I would start working on the fishing boats and trawlers. Fishing and the sea are very much in my blood, despite initially wanting to take a slightly different path!

‘When I joined the RNLI, I gained proper training and experience in a variety of subjects such as sea survival, firefighting, first aid, leadership and VHF / MF radio certificates. I’ve also had the opportunity to travel to other lifeboat stations across the UK and Ireland. Wherever I’ve been, I’ve always received a warm welcome from crew members and station volunteers. Being part of the RNLI always feels like a big family.

‘I was also very lucky to be invited to the opening of the RNLI Lifeboat College in Poole, alongside hundreds of Coxswains and representatives from lifeboat stations all over the country. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 July 2004.

‘In July 2016, I was invited to a garden party at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh which I attended with my daughter. I was very honoured to be representing the RNLI.’

After 35 years of active service in the lifesaving charity, Hamish has attended hundreds of shouts with Portree RNLI, but remembers a particularly challenging emergency:

‘We were tasked with assisting a creel boat off the coast of Gairloch that was taking on water. When we arrived on scene, the boat had sunk to the level of the deck, and we were convinced that the boat would sink entirely. However, we decided to put a pump onboard to try and see if this would stop the boat sinking further. A nearby vessel had evacuated the crew members, but the crew came back onboard and we managed to refloat the creel boat, allowing it to be towed to Gairloch. This is an incident where we saved not just the members of the crew but also the creel boat itself, which I remember to this day.’

Hamish officially turned off his pager at the start of November and is now enjoying some time away from active service:

‘Being part of the RNLI has always been a part of my life, particularly as I’ve been doing it so long! It will always be an important organisation that I am proud to have been a part of. But I’m enjoying having a bit more freedom in life now that I don’t have to stay too close to the lifeboat station in case of a shout!’

Douglas MacDougall, Portree RNLI Lifeboat Operations Manager, said:

'Hamish has been a stalwart of the Portree Lifeboat crew since the station was established in the early 1990s. He's been involved in hundreds of service calls over his 35 years, some sadly tragic, but many more where lives have been saved. His seamanship as Coxswain was outstanding and he is highly respected by crew, the wider RNLI community and other seafarers on our coastline. The station is indebted to him for his dedication over those 35 years and we extend our thanks and admiration for his commitment to the RNLI and the local community'.

The RNLI has been saving lives at sea for over two hundred years. It relies on donations and support from the public to operate the lifesaving service that it does.

There are over 5,700 volunteer RNLI lifeboat crew members at 238 lifeboat stations around the UK and Ireland, with a further 4,000 volunteer shore crew members. Our volunteers are on call and ready to respond to calls for help 24 hrs a day, 365 days of the year.

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