Lifeboathouse destroyed: a 645-tonnc coaster. Kingsabbey ploughed into Southend Pier on the evening of Monday June M . 1986. She came l« rest athwart the lifeboat slipway destroying piles supporting the front of the boalhouse. More damage was done while the coaster extricated herself from this position hut fortunately the station's Atlantic 21 rigid inflatable lifeboat Percy (nil/in II, named only two months earlier by Princess Anne, although trapped inside the boalhouse, was unharmed. The lifeboat was salvaged from the boathouse the next day together with all the equipment needed to allow her to operate again from a temporary base and 48 hours after the accident she was back in service. The boathouse, however, was structurally so badly damaged that it is now having to be demolished. The severed walkway has been repaired and a temporary boathouse has been built on the very end of the pier where the lifeboat is launched by davits. photographs by courtesy of Stnithcntl I: vetting l-'.chn.