Mundesley Lifeboat is getting a new rib to replace its current vessel, Footprints

Mundesley’s lifeboat crew will soon be at the helm of a state of the art boat when it takes delivery of a new vessel in the spring.

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The new rib, which has been ordered and is now being modified to the crew’s specification, is expected to come into action at the end of April. It will replace the station’s current boat Footprints, which has been in use for seven years and is in need of replacing.

For the past year the independently run station has been raising the £30,000 needed for the new boat, which will come equipped with an up to date chart plotter and a state of the art Automatic Identification System (AIS), which the crew has not benefited from before.

Nick Alexander, chairman of Mundesley lifeboat, said the rib would be one of the first inshore vessels to be fitted with the AIS.

“It’s a GPS type system that allows the coast guard to see where we are on their screen in their ops rooms and means we can then coordinate better with them,” he added. “It’s one of the first times it’s been fitted to an inshore boat.

“It’s going to be commonplace in the future but since we’re changing our boat it’s now time to get set up for the next seven years.”

Money for the updated rib was raised through donations, the lifeboat’s dedicated charity shop, at various events and from legacies and Mr Alexander wanted to stress how grateful the crew was for the public’s support, as the station is run entirely on their charitable contributions.

He said: “We’re absolutely delighted that we have been supported enough that we can go out and purchase a new lifeboat.

“For a small community to be able to raise this sort of money and provide a lifeboat service with such state of the art equipment is absolutely fantastic.”

The new vessel’s moniker is being kept tightly under wraps and will be revealed at a naming ceremony when the station takes delivery of the rib next spring.