The Atlantic 85 is a fast, agile lifeboat. It can hit 35 knots and operate in conditions that would send most vessels home. It is the kind of boat that asks something of you before it gives anything back.
On March 8, 2026 — International Women's Day — four women at Portsmouth Lifeboat Station climbed aboard one and made history.
**Kim Dugan. Jane McMaster. Megan Lundy. Kala Whitaker.**
They were the first all-female crew ever to launch at Portsmouth Lifeboat Station. It was a training exercise. It was also a milestone that the station will tell stories about for a very long time.
**A Station Built on Volunteers**
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution — the RNLI — is one of Britain and Ireland's most quietly extraordinary institutions. It is staffed almost entirely by volunteers: people who take calls in the middle of the night, pull on drysuits in the rain, and launch into whatever the sea is doing without being paid a penny for it. They have been doing this since 1824.
Portsmouth Lifeboat Station sits at one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. The Solent — the channel between mainland England and the Isle of Wight — carries ferries, container ships, naval vessels, leisure craft, and everything in between. Things go wrong out there. When they do, the RNLI goes out to fix them.
The women at Portsmouth aren't new to any of this. They serve as helms, crew, shore crew, and station managers. They turn up for early morning training when the tide is right and late-night shouts when it isn't. What was new on March 8 was standing together on the slipway as a complete crew — and looking out at the water knowing the boat was theirs.
**The Theme: Give to Gain**
International Women's Day 2026 carried the theme *"Give to Gain"* — a celebration of the personal fulfilment and community impact that comes from volunteering. It's a theme that could have been written for the RNLI.
Asked what the day meant to her, one of the crew reflected that it wasn't just about making a statement. It was about showing other women and girls that this is something they can do — that the lifeboat station is a place for them, that the Solent doesn't belong to any particular type of person, and that volunteering in a role like this is one of the most meaningful things you can give your time to.
The RNLI has been actively working to increase the representation of women across all its roles — from crew to helm to management. Nationally, the proportion of women in frontline operational roles has been rising steadily. Portsmouth's March 8 launch is a visible, visceral marker of that progress.
**What Lifesaving Looks Like**
The RNLI responds to around 8,000 call-outs a year across its stations around the UK and Irish coastlines. It saves, on average, around 300 lives annually — and renders assistance to thousands more. Every person on every lifeboat crew contributed to that number without expecting recognition, without pay, and often without sleep.
The four women who launched at Portsmouth on International Women's Day are part of that tradition now. They added their names to a 200-year roll of people who chose to face the sea for the sake of strangers.
It was a training exercise. But it was the kind that matters. 🚤
*Sources: RNLI (rnli.org, March 8, 2026) · AllAtSea.co.uk · Royal Museums Greenwich*
