RNLI Shannon

[Ratch]

Michael.Clegg2 days ago

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Welcome to this latest edition of our Workbench blog and all the news, updates and modelling exclusives from the fascinating world of Airfix.

Can you believe that we’re almost at the end of February and we’re still trying to work our way through all the recently announced new tooling projects here on Workbench. You will be pleased to hear that we will be continuing on that same theme this week, as we place the new model development spotlight on the final new Starter Set addition to the 2024 range, a kit which whilst it may well be aimed at the less experienced modeller, might just be a subject which has the widest appeal of any kit in the current range. When it comes to the operation of aeroplanes, ships and other craft dedicated to saving the lives of people who find themselves in perilous situations, they always occupy a special place in the hearts of the nation, along with the brave souls who operate them. The last of the four new tooling additions to our range of Starter Set kits takes its inspiration from the theme of rescue, and is the subject of our latest project introduction, our 1/72nd scale Shannon Class Lifeboat kit.

A design project which every single one of the Airfix team were desperate to get their hands on, we will see during the course of this latest edition how this amazing vessel brings the very latest maritime technology to the serious business of saving lives at sea and how the Starter Set range can now boast a scale representation of one of the most impressive craft to be found in British waters amongst its ranks. We are also proud to be introducing this new kit in an important year for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, as 2024 marks their 200th Anniversary and we can’t wait for modellers to mark the occasion with this fabulous little kit.

Thankfully, we are all about to learn of the many impressive qualities of the Shannon Class Lifeboat from the comfort of our homes this weekend, and not be requiring of its services. We will, however, be seeing how the Airfix range will benefit from a scale representation of the vessel in this significant anniversary year.

 

Shannon Class Lifeboat – Designed to save lives

A location of Shannon Class Lifeboat delights, the research team’s trip to the RNLI’s All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole offered the chance to see examples of this impressive craft in various stages of construction.

For those of us who either live by or enjoy spending time around Britain’s extensive and majestic coastline, we have long held the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in extremely high regard and whenever we find ourselves near a lifeboat station, we can be sure that we will not be alone in stopping to talk to the crew on duty. In addition to this, no matter what our opinions might be on other aspects of the nation’s affairs, we are always more than happy to make a cash donation to that station, or purchase something from their shop, because we all know of the vital and often dangerous role these volunteer crews perform on our behalf, something we both admire and rely on.

Be it a holiday dinghy paddle gone wrong or a sailing yacht finding itself in a spot of bother, the knowledge that this network of highly trained seafaring professionals and their capable craft are poised to come to our immediate assistance, makes every day by the sea all the more enjoyable. Whenever you see a lifeboat on a training sortie close to shore, you can guarantee that the crew will be greeted by thousands of the other kind of waves in a public display of admiration and if you see a boat receiving some cleaning or maintenance TLC at a station or in a harbour, there will always be a crowd of people asking questions about the capabilities of the vessel and the last ‘shout’ the crew were called to attend.

Perhaps all this interest is a subliminal attempt to reassure ourselves that the RNLI will be there if and when we ever need them, but with 200 years of tradition behind them, we needn’t worry – these folks know what they’re doing. RNLI crews are incredibly well trained, spending many hours training on the exact vessel they will be manning operationally and even though very few have strong seafaring backgrounds to call upon, their intensive training ensures they’re ready to answer any call when it comes. Like our waterborne guardians, the RNLI combination of national alert network, the latest technology, well-trained crews and the most capable lifeboats is something which has been perfected over 200 years of life saving tradition.

More Poole visit delights, this time showing a Shannon Class Lifeboat wheelhouse under construction and a more advanced vessel masked up for painting.

The lifeboat which attracted the attention of the Airfix team is an impressive vessel which very much highlights the capabilities of a modern RNLI, the Shannon Class Lifeboat. Designed by RNLI engineers with extensive knowledge in every aspect of saving lives at sea, the early Shannon hulls were moulded by SAR Composites and fitted out by Berthon Boat Co. of Lymington, however pretty early on in this project, it was always the intention for this work to be taken in-house to the RNLI’s own All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole, where they now also carry out the specialist hull moulding process.

This impressive craft is an all-weather Lifeboat and when other inshore craft are forced to return to their home stations, Shannon Class boats can go out in some of the worst sea conditions imaginable. Fast and incredibly manoeuvrable, these lifeboats have clean hull bottoms and are powered by two 650hp Scania engines which drive a pair of Hamilton waterjet units, giving the helmsman incredible manoeuvrability when in a rescue situation. The vessel is quoted as being capable of attaining speeds of 30 knots, however, is usually limited to 25 knots in most situations, most likely for reasons of crew comfort and safety. 

Each crew member’s seat is suspension dampened, a measure which allows them to perform their roles even if the lifeboat is being buffeted by heavy seas and in the most severe of circumstances, the Shannon has the ability to right itself should the need arise. Other operational features include fully sealed doors and windows against the ingress of water and almost indestructible windscreen wipers all go to make this a craft designed to perform in the most demanding of situations.

In a rescue situation, the Shannon Class Lifeboat can operate for 10 hours at full power and if required, has the space to accommodate up to 17 rescued souls, in addition to the six-man crew, whilst still retaining the ability to self-right in heavy seas. Up to 79 people could be carried in emergencies, however, the vessel would lose the ability to right itself in a capsize situation. Three different types of stretcher can be utilised, allowing the doctor to administer immediate first aid to injured survivors, however this does take up space in the main wheelhouse. 

Shannon Class Lifeboat hull walkaround, showing the beaching protection on the underside of the hull and the water jet units which give this life saver its impressive manoeuvrability.

The Shannon is also equipped with an impressive Systems and Information Management System, which allows each member of the crew to access all the vital information they might need when engaged in a rescue.

The Shannon Class is all about performance, a vessel built to perform a difficult task, but one it does arguably more effectively than any other vessel on the seas. Significantly, all this performance must be administered by volunteer crews from all walks of life and whilst they do train exhaustively on this vessel and its complex systems, everything has been designed to be as intuitive as possible. If you find yourself in trouble at sea, you can breathe a sigh of relief if you see a Shannon Class lifeboat speeding to your aid.

Just one of a great many innovative features this incredible vessel can boast are the number of ways in which a Shannon Class can be operated. In addition to waterborne operation from the safety of a harbour, it can also be deployed from a standard slipway, or from any beach, something which allows them to be stationed at locations where other lifeboats simply couldn’t be. The water-jet power and control system and clean hull bottom allows the Shannon to be operated in extremely shallow water and when combined with an innovative tracked launch and recovery system developed by specialist firm Supacat, this is undoubtedly a no expense spared, lifesaving specialist platform.

Priced at well over £2 Million each and with around five vessels produced each year, currently around 41 of these magnificent machines are in service at stations around the UK coastline, with a further nine maintained as part of the RNLI reserve fleet. With a projected service life of around 50 years, the Shannon Class Lifeboat fleet will thankfully be keeping our coastline safe for many years to come.

Please use this link to find the nearest RNLI Lifeboat station to your location, or favourite holiday destination.

 

An Airfix design project to be proud of

A design screenshot which looks every inch a Shannon Class lifeboat and a new Starter Set model kit project which will have appeal way beyond the traditional modelling world. 

When opening our discussions on the new Shannon Class Lifeboat design project, we decided to go straight to our Lead Researcher Luke to discover how the project came about and what supporting information he was able to present the team with at the outset. Luke told us that this project actually had something of an unusual start to begin with, as they already had design files from an earlier Corgi die-cast model project and then a little later, actual CAD data supplied by the original manufacturers of the vessel, via the RNLI. 

Unfortunately, in his and the rest of the team’s opinion, neither of these project research files were of a standard the Airfix team would base a project on these days, so therefore Luke made a direct approach to the RNLI, to see if he and Design Manager Matt might pay them a visit at their Poole headquarters. The visit was duly granted and whilst there, the pair were not only given the chance to see Shannon Class Lifeboats at various stages of production and assembly, but also offered the opportunity to take copious photographic references to aid the project. Of even greater benefit than this, they also came away with the latest version of design CAD files RNLI engineers and technicians were working with.

These actual CAD files proved crucial to the success of the project and allowed the team to replicate this distinctive lifeboat in all its high-tech glory and Luke has asked that we thank our friends at the RNLI All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole once again for their invaluable assistance, when posting this project introduction.

Luke went on to describe how the Shannon Class Lifeboat project was also memorable for another reason, and that’s how every single member of the Airfix design team were desperate to get their hands on this one! By their very nature, Starter Set kit projects possess the potential to come into contact with many more people than a traditional kit might, something which is always a draw for a designer when projects are being allocated, however, with the Shannon Lifeboat project, this appeal was even further enhanced.

Knowing the nationwide affection the general public has for the RNLI, this particular Starter Set held the very real potential of coming into contact with more people than any other kit in recent times has done, breaking down modelling barriers and introducing many more people to our beloved brand and the joys of model making, in a way only a subject like this could. Simply by virtue of the high regard in which the RNLI is held, this little kit could be coming in for some serious modelling attention in the years to come.

Design screenshot detail highlighting how the Shannon Class Lifeboat’s wheelhouse has been replicated.

Moving inside, this is the helmsman’s station inside the wheelhouse. There is also a more elevated, open helmsman’s position on top of the wheelhouse, towards the back.

In addition to this, purely from a designer’s perspective, the Shannon Class Lifeboat was a very different project to take on, offering the prospect of working with very different shapes and geometry, all of which would require new assembly processes and a different way of working. With all these factors in play, every designer would have loved to have has this in their back catalogue of design achievements, however as always, the final allocation decision would come down to the usual factors of existing workloads, project timings and designer experience. As you can imagine though, there were five very disappointed Airfix designers in Margate on the day the Shannon Lifeboat project was allocated. 

As this was going to be one of our larger Starter Set kits, using a box the same size as our Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II kit, the designer did have a little more flexibility throughout when it came to part count, as this was always going to be something a little different to a kit like the new North American P-51D Mustang kit featured in a previous edition. Design Manager Matt Whiting told us that there was some different thinking required throughout the design phase of this kit, as it still had to adhere to the Starter Set ethos, even though there was some wriggle room in terms of part count. He told us that for a subject such as this, if a designer got carried away, the part count could easily end up being unacceptably high for a kit destined for this novice/introducer range, something which needed to be avoided.

As we would expect, the designer had to retain all the features and detail displayed on a real Shannon Class lifeboat but incorporate much of this into the design of larger components, but once assembled, how it must be a pleasing representation of the boat, no matter what the experience level of the modeller building it. Simplicity of assembly and inherent model rigidity were none-negotiables when it came to this project and in all aspects, Matt really thinks the new kit delivers.

Once the 4 main hull components have been assembled and the wheelhouse added, you are almost there when it comes to building a scale representation of a Shannon Class Lifeboat and even at that early stage, it already looks great. The real skill the designer needed to show with this project was to make it appear as if there was an appropriate level of internal detail inside the wheelhouse, whilst not actually devoting too much time, or including too many separate parts into the assembly sequence. For this new kit, the designer’s skill and attention would be needed elsewhere.

Deck design detail, which incorporates much of the wheelhouse interior featuring on the kit.

A fascinating Shannon Class lifeboat design screenshot which shows an exploded view of the part layout of this impressive new kit.

As this is clearly a very different subject for an Airfix designer to tackle, we wanted to ask Matt if there was anything about the design element of the project he though interesting, or particularly clever?

Obviously, we were aware that we were asking Matt to recall a project which he had been overseeing quite some time ago, however, he mentioned that he did recall how work on the main wheelhouse was quite impressive, both from a design and a manufacturing perspective. This distinctive feature of the vessel is rather box shaped in design and how on a traditional kit, such a feature would usually be made up of several separate components which are all assembled together during the build. The problem with this is that it can often be difficult for such an assembly this to retain its overall shape integrity if care is not taken, and whilst this may not be an issue for an experienced modeller, it certainly had to be avoided on a kit aimed at the novice, or first-time modeller.

For this new kit, the entire wheelhouse structure was designed to be moulded as a single piece ‘shell’, in a similar manner to how the bodies of Starter Set cars are produced and was definitely a case where the collective knowledge of the Airfix design team managed to overcome a pressing project issue. As is the case with the entire kit, this feature works really well.

Another issue which was intended to simplify the assembly process, but in doing so proved to be unexpectedly challenging for the designer to negotiate, was the layout for the main hull components. These parts were rather large and due to their shape, would end up being deep cut-outs in the tooling itself, meaning that not only did the designer have to think how best to replicate this, but also needed to liaise closely with the toolmaker to impress on them exactly what he needed them to achieve. 

The overall tooling layout would have to support the eventual packing of the kit inside its standard box and as such, the depth of the hull components might cause issues from a packaging and potential damage perspective. Both the design and resultant tooling layout were therefore crucial to the success of the project and posed an interesting challenge for the designer. It was interesting to see how this project perhaps more than any other we have covered recently, required the designer to consider how the kit would need to be presented in model shops everywhere following its release and how he needed to consider this quite early on during the design phase.

Two complete design screenshot views which clearly illustrate the appeal of this latest addition to the Starter Set range, a kit which will appeal to a great many people, modellers and RNLI supporters alike.

Finally, we wanted to ask Matt if there was any particular aspect of the Shannon Class Lifeboat kit’s design which he remembers as being particularly challenging?

Again, Matt returned to the subject of the main section halves of the boat’s hull in answer to this question, as these large components were quite deep in tooling and incredibly complicated shapes to replicate. Because of the geometry involved, the use of traditional locating pins and holes was proving problematic, so an innovative tab design was developed to allow the parts to come together securely, whilst at the same time including additional ribs to give the structure the inbuilt stability it needed.

The worry of having a kit come together in a simple, secure and logical manner is not something the average modeller should ever have to be concerned with and if that proves to be the case with any new kit, then the designer has done his job effectively, essentially taking away all these potential problems away through clever, thoughtful and innovative design solutions. With the hull halves together and deck and wheelhouse in place, the novice modeller is already well on the way to having a pleasing representation of this high-tech rescue craft on their display shelf with this kit.

Another thing Matt remembers as being significant on this project was the design of the model’s display stand. During one of the regular project development meetings at Margate, the subject of displaying the finished model came up and how best to achieve this. Ordinarily, a stand such as the one included with the Mary Rose Starter Set would be included, but as the Mary Rose is a 500-year-old ship and the Shannon Class Lifeboat is very much cutting-edge maritime technology, the team wanted to do something a little bit different.

Luke recalled how during their visit to the RNLI’s All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole, they saw a mobile frame structure which had been designed specifically to allow these boats to be moved around the facility, and perhaps how something similar might fit the design bill in this case. Although clearly just a heavy engineering solution to a lifeboat mobility problem, the team decided to create a design loosely based on this cradle, creating a display stand which was both bespoke and effective in allowing the finished Lifeboat kit to be displayed. It even incorporated angled panel sections at both sides of the base, where details of the Shannon Class can be displayed for all to admire.

One final design screenshot which adds a splash or colour and shows the model stand design which is much more appropriate for a craft of this advanced nature.

To bring this latest new tooling design project overview to a close, we went back to Luke to ask about the scheme option he selected for the new kit. Clearly, the overall presentation of the model was never in question, as the iconic colours used on an RNLI lifeboat is just as famous as the reputation of the service itself, but when it came to the individual boat to be modelled, well that was a very different story altogether.

Each one of the 41 Shannon Class Lifeboats currently in service are all very much region, or more accurately, station specific and with vessels stationed right around Britain’s coastline from Invergordon to Hastings and Whitby to Pwllheli and with local communities being so fiercely proud of their boats, how on earth could we select just one to replicate? Once again, Luke told us that the visit to the All-Weather Lifeboat Centre at Poole provided the inspiration they needed and one of the Shannon’s noted on site as part of the reserve fleet. 

Boat number 13-01 has been used extensively as a sea trials and self-right test boat, in addition to providing invaluable media support for the RNLI in opening stations and displaying to the press as an example of the modern lifeboat service and as such, is rather famous in lifesaving circles. The fact that she is currently part of the reserve fleet made her appealing for this very specific modelling purpose and helped us to avoid the perilous situation of favouring the boat of one beloved RNLI station over another. A relatively generic Shannon Class Lifeboat livery, this turned out to be just what the sailor ordered!

An excitingly unusual design project for the Airfix team to give their attention to, but one which has resulted in an incredibly popular new kit about to join the current Airfix range, we have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that our new Shannon Class Lifeboat will go on to earn a reputation as one of our most popular kits for many years to come. In this significant anniversary year for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, we’re also proud to announce that a minimum of 90 pence from the sale of each kit will be paid in support of the RNLI.

As far as our popular Starter Set range of kits is concerned, it’s about to gain a newly tooled kit which will add real interest to any model display, the scale embodiment of a lifesaving service this nation has relied on for 200 years.

An incredibly appealing addition to the Starter Set range, will anyone be able to resist the charms of the beautiful new 1/72nd scale Shannon Class Lifeboat kit?

We are afraid that's all we have for you in this latest edition, but we will be back next Friday with more project development updates and the very latest Airfix kit exclusives. In the meantime, we are always keen to hear your views on all things Airfix and in particular, any thoughts and opinions you may have regarding our Workbench blog. If you would like to drop us a quick line, could we please ask that you use our workbench@airfix.com email for all correspondence. 

To re-visit any of the Airfix blogs we have produced over the past seven years or so, please head to our main Workbench hub, where you will find our entire blog back catalogue and all the Airfix design projects we have already covered.
 

[Tour de Airfix]

Great addition to the Airfix lineup and perfect for the 200th anniversary 👌

I do enjoy Michael Clegg’s Workbench blogs, do you two ever get to meet? If you get a chance, mention me to him - hoping he still remembers me 😉

Keep up the great work, Airfix is back and flying high 👍