Zetland Lifeboat Museum
The Zetland Lifeboat Museum in Redcar on the Teesside coast houses the Zetland, the oldest surviving lifeboat in the world, a clinker-built rowing lifeboat constructed in 1802 by Henry Greathead of South Shields that served the community of Redcar for seventy-eight years, saving over five hundred lives from wrecks in the dangerous waters of the Tees Bay and the north Yorkshire coast. The preservation of this vessel and its display in a purpose-built museum beside the beach where it was launched makes the Zetland Museum one of the most important maritime heritage sites in the north of England.
Henry Greathead is credited as the inventor of the modern lifeboat, his design of 1789 incorporating the curved bottom, raised bow and stern, and cork buoyancy that gave his boats the ability to right themselves after capsizing and to operate in conditions where conventional open boats would have been overwhelmed. The Zetland, built to Greathead's improved design in 1802, is the finest surviving example of this pioneering lifeboat type and provides direct evidence of the design principles that made the organised rescue of shipwreck survivors a practical possibility for the first time.
The museum provides interpretive displays explaining the Zetland's history, the development of lifeboat design and the extraordinary record of service of the Redcar lifeboat crews across the vessel's active years. The stories of individual rescues in the treacherous conditions of the Yorkshire coast in the days before mechanical power and radio communication give the museum's narrative a human urgency that supplements the technical interest of the historic vessel.
Redcar itself is a coastal town with a long beach and a modest resort character, and the museum provides one of the most significant heritage attractions on the Teesside coast.