Peter Huxtable joined as a volunteer crew member at Shoreham Lifeboat Station 43 years ago
During his years of service he has shown selfless dedication to the RNLI and helped to save hundreds of lives.
In fact he has saved 449 lives during his service serving on both the all weather and inshore lifeboats.
Born inLondon, he moved to Shoreham-by-Sea when he was aged eight. Having grown up by the sea he became a fisherman and was soon asked to join the lifeboat crew.
In 1991 he became coxswain of the Shoreham lifeboat becoming the second longest serving coxswain in the history of the station.
In 2005 he was awarded an MBE for services to the RNLI. He has also been awarded two RNLI vellums for helping to rescue the crew of the stricken Greek vessel, the Athina B, offBrightonin 1980 and as coxswain for saving the lives of two crew on board the yacht Trimley Maid, which was in trouble in gale force nine winds off the coast in June1999.
Peter also worked tirelessly for three years to raise money and promote the £1 million community appeal to help build a new lifeboat station at Shoreham.
He even took to the skies to publicise the appeal and wing walked his way into the record books by becoming the first ever RNLI coxswain to attempt the daring act in 2008.
The biplane he was standing on flew directly over the lifeboat station at Shoreham, giving him a bird’s eye view of it and the seas he has navigated while rescuing those in trouble.
In January 2009 he saw the old Shoreham lifeboat station onKingstonBeach, built in 1933, demolished and in September 2010 finally stepped into the new completed state-of-the-art lifeboat station.
Three months later and having already seen action on three previous station lifeboats, he proudly brought the new £2.7million RNLI lifeboat Enid Collett, the only Tamar-class lifeboat on the south coast, back to Shoreham and into her new boathouse.
On his last official day of service, the crew organised a final launch of the lifeboat and a surprise where he was winched off by the Solent Coastguard helicopter and put on the Newhaven lifeboat.
A modest Peter, said: “I couldn’t do my job as coxswain without the support of the lifeboat crew and my family. It is a team effort.
“It has been a massive part of my life and I will miss it when the adrenaline kicks in and takes over on a shout, and you know you have been able to help someone in trouble and being part of a team.”
East Worthing and Shoreham MP, Tim Loughton said,
‘Few can surpass Peter’s record of service to the RNLI and few can claim to have been responsible for saving as many lives as him. He has been part of the fabric of Shoreham for so many years and is universally respected by the enormous number of people who have seen his work in our community. Despite retiring as coxswain, I am sure he will continue to make a major contribution locally and he should be tremendously proud of everything that he has achieved. He steps down from the helm of the Shoreham lifeboat on a high, leaving a state of the art lifeboat station and pride of the fleet Enid Collett, neither of which would have happened without his tremendous and selfless hard work. On behalf of all the people of Shoreham and beyond I want to thank Peter for everything he has achieved – a Shorehammer we can all be enormously proud of.’