Caister Lifeboat’s bold plans for a major tourist attraction

Caister Lifeboat, the independent lifeboat charity – which operates the only all-weather lifeboat independently of the RNLI – is due to make an announcement in the near future about a successor to the Bernard Matthews ll all-weather lifeboat.

Coxswain, Guy Gibson, and the charity’s senior crew have spent the past two years assessing designs to replace the 17-year-old boat with a larger, more modern vessel. In 2020, Guy approached us to provide an architectural solution to house an upgraded and larger vessel for 2022, in line with his bold plans to make Caister lifeboat a major tourist attraction.

Guys’ vision is to provide an attractive cafe and external deck to unify the day-to-day functional operations of the building, with viewing platforms, information boards a shop, and other facilities. This brief goes way beyond the need to purely provide an extension, with a long, local association with the project, we’ve found it to be very rewarding in terms of the architectural involvement, working with this superb charity, and being able to contribute to a new phase in the station and the history of Caister-on-sea.

Here is a glimpse of the outline plans.