Fleet history

The road to self righters
In 1824 both ‘rescue societies’ began working with double ended clinker beach boats: the North had 28ft Groenland whaleboats: light, narrow (5½ft beam), six sweeps and with rush for buoyancy; the South deployed 25ft clinker 10 oar pulling boats, with a beam of 7ft and designed by its founder Willem van Houten Jr. From 1866 some Beeching Peake self-righters were used.

Various designs of pulling boats dominated the scene until in 1893 the South ordered a hydraulic steam lifeboat from John Thornycroft and in 1909 a similar vessel from the Feijenoord shipyard of Rotterdam. The North bought in 1907 its first unsinkable purpose designed motor lifeboat, with 45hp Brooke’s engine and arguably the first tunnel-protected propeller in history. Improvement of motor lifeboats became a continuous process, culminating by 1927 in development of what was to become the standard type of selfrighting lifeboat, after an idea by famous lifeboat coxwain, Mees Toxopeus, who suggested to build a submarine on the surface. Professor Ernst Vossnack of Delft University and Jan Niestern, shipbuilder of Delfzijl, made a design with heavy keel plating and a kiptank under one sidedeck, which would together always right the boat after capsizing. Torpedoboat hatches, special ventilators to stop water entering the capsized boat, each engine in its own watertight engineroom and mercury-switches to stop the engines running beyond an inclination of 100°, were some of the revolutionary features.

In 1927 the first of these self-righters, 62ft, 50 tons Insulinde was launched, soon followed by sistership Neeltje Jacoba; the South simultaneously began its programme of Vossnack-designed self-righting double screw lifeboats with the 57ft Koningin Wilhelmina. All big self-righters built after the Second World War by both the North and the South were in fact further developments of the Insulinde design. The South’s latest series of selfrighters were slightly bigger than those of the North and better manoeuvrable with double rudders, and had an enormous capacity for survivors (some 100 could be stowed down below) because of the ferries which regularly call at Rotterdam.
These 10 knots self-righters operated from major ports. Places in between were considered insufficiently covered. From the 1920s the North therefore gradually replaced its beach-launched pulling boats with 34ft Eierland class clinker double ended motor lifeboats.

Rather RIBs

From the 1960s  a significant growth in the number of pleasure craft venturing offshore, boosted the number of distress calls from yachts. Air traffic increased, also in the wake of the offshore industry, with the risk of emergency landings on the sea, and the need for rapid recovering of large numbers of casualties far out to sea. With better medical services and communications, the number of sailors and islanders increased who had to be transferred to hospitals ashore. Gradually the emphasis in lifeboat ‘clients’ shifted from heavy weather big ship casualties in winter to ‘all seasons’ clients who especially needed rapid assistance. More often services included relatively vulnerable craft in moderate conditions, while the number of heavy weather services to shipping increased as well. A revolutionary new type of fast lifeboat was needed.

In 1973 the South bought its first RNLI-developed Atlantic 21 and in 1981 the North joined the RNLI’s Medina-project, aimed at researching the development of large fast rigid inflatables (RIBs). When the RNLI choose for rigid fast craft, the Dutch KNZHRM decided to go it alone, developing Medinas with waterjet propulsion. Meanwhile the South ordered from Mulder & Rijke lifeboat builders 42ft RIB Koningin Beatrix, also with waterjets. In 1986 the North’s further development of the Medina with W. de Vries Lentsch naval architects, David Stogdon (RNLI) and the Delft University ship model basin, was fit for production and the 47ft Johannes Frederik was ordered.
Experience with both the Atlantic 21 and Johannes Frederik proves that RIBs with waterjets fit the Dutch lifeboat-bill admirably. They are fast and highly manoeuvrable, can–if properly designed, equipped and handled- safely negotiate the worst of sea conditions, can safely operate in shallow water, and are safe in coming alongside and boarding of casualties, also if the latter include vulnerable craft such as yachts. In 1990 a further RIB-development, the 35ft Valentijn class came into being, primarily designed to replace with its 34 knots the 7.5 knots Eierland class.

The need for higher endurance on offshore missions triggered the development of the 62ft Arie Visser class, with the same team that was responsible for both other RIBs. The first was launched in 1999 and it has sufficient bunker capacity for maintaining its top speed of 34 knots for 16 hours. All bigger RIBs are selfrighting thanks to their enclosed wheelhouse, the Valentijn-class’ open steering position has an airtight box overhead and inflatable bag on top.
Alongside these big RIBs, KNRM has also 25 smaller RIBs for the North Sea coast, Waddenzee, IJsselmeer and Rhine-Scheldt estuary. These smaller craft are semi-automatic self righters: after a capsize the crew have to trigger an inflatable righting bag on top of the bar over the helmsman’s seat. For the inland open waters in 2010 the Nikolaas-class was introduced. Of this 33 knots/20 survivors craft an expected 20 will be built, mainly to replace the Atlantic 21s and smaller RIBs.

The KNRM’s fleet will eventually be streamlined to just four types of RIB, not included auxiliary inflatables; a great logistic improvement from the 11 different types of motor lifeboat and RIB with which the KNRM was saddled in 1991, at the time of the merger.