Students’ rescue boat wins top engineering award
A LIFE-SAVING rescue boat designed by teenage pupils at a Welsh college has won a top engineering award – matching Concorde and Tower Bridge.
The rigid-hull inflatable was made after students were set a task by their college head to designing a rescue boat to tackle rough seas off the coast just yards from their classrooms.
The patent was sold to the RNLI for the nominal fee of £1 – and the design revolutionised maritime rescue by providing a powerful and reliable vessel capable of handling rough seas. It was designed by the students at Atlantic College at St Donats, Vale of Glamorgan, in the 1960s under the guidance of founding principal Rear-Admiral Desmond Hoare.
The original design was known as the X Alpha but is now known as the Atlantic Class and has been used in since.
It has now been handed the prestigious Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Engineering Heritage Award – previously given to designs including Alan Turing’s cipher decoder, the Channel Tunnel, and the Jaguar E-type.
The Atlantic Class revolutionised maritime rescue worldwide and became the model for RNLI inshore boats across Britain.
Carolyn Griffiths, president of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “The development of X Alpha, one of the very first ribs, is a fantastic example of UK engineering.”
UWC Atlantic College principal Peter T Howe said: “It is an honour to have the Institution of Mechanical Engineers recognise the work of our first principal and the earliest students of our college.” lifeboat building ever