£1.6m to conserve the Longhope lifeboat on Hoy

The Longhope Lifeboat Museum on Hoy has been awarded £1.6 million by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, most of it going on conserving its lifeboat, the Thomas McCunn, and building a visitor centre at the old station.

She is the last seaworthy slipway-launched vintage lifeboat in the UK. Between 1933 and 1962 she launched 101 times into the Pentland Firth and Scapa Flow and brought 308 people back. She worked on as a relief boat until 1972, was sold out of service, then reached the museum in 2000 for a pound. She still goes down the slip on special occasions.

The museum is the old boathouse itself, standing on timber legs out over the water.