The £2m lifeboat has been funded by a generous donation from the Robertson Trust, who also paid for the station's previous lifeboat, and is expected to be placed on service by the end of 2005.

Peterhead has been chosen as the home for the first Tamar in Scotland following the RNLI coast review, which assesses the search and rescue requirements of the area with regard to RNLI lifeboats. As well as being the first in Scotland, it will also be only the second to be placed on service anywhere in the British Isles.

James Clubb, Lifeboat Operations Manager at Peterhead, said, 'It's great news for the station. The crew are all keen to get going, and are looking forward to training on board the new lifeboat before she officially comes on service.

'We've had our Tyne class Babs and Agnes Robertson since 1987 and I can't deny we're going to miss her. She's a fine boat and has served her crew well, but we have to recognise that things move on in lifeboat design. The extra speed of the Tamar will be really useful and will certainly help us to save more lives.'

The Tamar class is the latest design of RNLI all weather lifeboat and features state of the art technology to enhance its lifesaving capabilities. The new lifeboat replaces the station's Tyne class all weather lifeboat, which was built in 1987.

Compared to the Tyne class the Tamar will be bigger - 16m as opposed to 14m - and faster, with a top speed of 25, rather than 17 knots.

The Tamar has more safety features built in to protect the crew, including a new seat design that will reduce loadings on crew members' spines in rough weather.

A new on board computer known as SIMS (Systems and Information Management System) further improves safety because a lot of the lifeboat's functions can now be managed remotely. This means the crew do not have to move around the boat while underway to an incident, reducing the risk of accidents. Using SIMS also allows better task sharing between crew members, as the various functions required to operate the lifeboat's machinery, navigation and communication can be accessed via screens at any of the six workstations on board.

MJInformation No: 20216