The Overland Launch of the Louisa Lifeboat in January 1899

The story of the Louisa lifeboat’s overland launch in January 1899 is one that resonates deeply with those who cherish maritime history and the spirit of community courage. It is a tale of determination, resilience, and the unyielding will to save lives against all odds. This event, immortalised in our song Louisa, captures a moment when ordinary people faced extraordinary challenges with quiet heroism.

A Harsh Winter on the North Devon Coast

January 1899 brought fierce storms and treacherous seas to the North Devon coast. The village of Lynmouth, nestled on the edge of Exmoor, was no stranger to the power of the ocean. Yet, the conditions that winter were particularly severe. The sea was wild, and the usual launch of lifeboats from the harbour was impossible due to the storm’s fury and the dangerous state of the shoreline.

The Louisa lifeboat was vital for the safety of sailors and fishermen who braved these waters daily. When a distress call came, the community knew they had to act swiftly. But the usual route to the sea was blocked by debris and raging surf. The only option was to transport the lifeboat overland to a safer launch point several miles away.

The Overland Journey: A Test of Strength and Spirit

Dave Crowcombe stood on the flooded quay, put a hand on the Louisa's hull, and shook his head. There was no launching her here. The sea he'd known his whole life had turned into something else entirely — a wall of water already lapping at the shopfronts behind him — and the boat built to save lives couldn't so much as leave the harbour.

It was the evening of 12 January 1899, and one of the worst storms in living memory had settled over the Bristol Channel. Out in the dark, the Forrest Hall — a 1,900-ton three-masted ship bound from Bristol to Liverpool, eighteen men aboard — had lost her tow and her rudder, and was drifting helplessly towards the rocks off Porlock. At 6.33pm, John Peder took the call at the Lynmouth Lifeboat Station. Somebody needed to launch a lifeboat, fast, and it couldn't be done from here.

So Crowcombe made a decision nobody in Lynmouth had tried before. If the Louisa couldn't launch from her own harbour, she'd launch from Porlock Weir instead, where the water lay sheltered from the worst of the storm. The only problem was that Porlock Weir was thirteen miles away — over Countisbury Hill, across the open moor, and down through Porlock — and the Louisa weighed the best part of ten tons.

They went anyway. John Crowcombe, Dick Burgees, Dick Ridler, Dick Moore, George Rawle, Charles Crick and Jarvis hauled alongside horses in the driving rain, while Will Richards, Tom Pugsley, Burt Penicott, John Ward and John Riddler were pulled from their firesides to lend their backs to the ropes. Along the way a garden wall had to come down to let the boat through a narrow lane — the homeowner's fury, by all accounts, turning to pride once she understood why. George Richards, half-frozen and thinking more of the fifteen souls waiting out at sea than of himself, kept pace through the mud and the dark. It took the better part of the night.

By the early hours of 13 January, exhausted but intact, the Louisa went into the water at Porlock Weir, into a gale that by then had reached force ten. The crew weren't done. They helped the Forrest Hall's exhausted men raise anchor, and escorted the stricken ship under tow across the Channel to safety. Only then did they turn the Louisa around and row her home to Lynmouth — arriving the better part of two days after they'd first been called out. All eighteen souls aboard the Forrest Hall survived the night. It stands today as one of the most extraordinary rescues in the RNLI's history.

A sister boat to the Louisa is still on display at the Glen Lyn Estate in the centre of Lynmouth, a short walk from the harbour she couldn't leave that night, and close by the road her crew dragged her along instead. It's easy, from the comfort of a warm pub, to romanticise a night like that — but stand at the bottom of Countisbury Hill on a wet January evening and it stops being a story and starts being a place. Ordinary men, in the worst weather of their lives, simply refused to accept that the sea had won. That's still worth raising a glass to, well over a century on.

Remembered in Song

It's a night the Crew still carries into every performance. We sing it two ways — our own song Louisa, and "13 Miles" by the folk band Skinny Lister — and if you'd like the full story behind either one, look out for future posts over in Songs of the Sea.