The handing over ceremony of the new D class lifeboat at Hastings took place at the station on 29 November 1989.

Mr Joe Adams, chairman of the Hastings station branch, welcomed the guests at the ceremony, and the lifeboat, which had been donated to the RNLI by Miss Yolande Rampton in memory of her mother, Cecile Rampton, was officially handed over by Miss Rampton to Mr Anthony Oliver, the RNLI's head of fund raising.

The boat was then placed in the hands of the Hastings lifeboat station and its honorary secretary, John Heyes, and the Reverend David Grant, chaplain to the lifeboat, conducted a service of dedication.

Miss Yolande Rampton was then invited to unveil a commemorative plaque, after which she watched proudly from the beach as the new inflatable lifeboat was put through her paces.

(Photo Hastings Observer).