Lifeboat crew claimed RNLI bosses belittled senior volunteers and forced them to leave.
Long-serving crew members at the charity told The Telegraph there were violent infighting at some lifeboat stations and requests to management were ignored.
One described mass resignations of volunteers in protest at bosses viewing them as “disposable”, while another claimed they were repeatedly sacked after an all-weather vessel was replaced by an inflatable one near the shore.
Controversy hits charity
It comes as the RNLI celebrates its 200th anniversary, having saved more than 144,000 lives since 1824 and still serves as the primary rescue service along the British and Irish coastlines.
In a photo taken to mark the anniversary on Monday, the RNLI released a bird’s-eye view of the launch of the £2.5 million Shannon-class lifeboat, one of the ships at the center of the row.
The company’s current £230 million income, which includes 238 lifeboat stations and many beaches, continues to grow with donations and bequests, but controversy has dogged the acclaimed charity at some stations.
Alex Smith, 69, said he was sacked as operations manager of the Arbroath Lifeboat Station at Angus in Eastern Scotland in June last year after objecting to the replacement of the all-weather Mersey class lifeboat with an Atlantic 85 rigid hulled inflatable boat.
He claimed that he and other crew members were concerned that the Atlantic 85 had a range of a six-mile radius at sea, and were instead promised they would be given a new high-tech, all-weather Shannon-class boat with range. 250 nautical miles.
“The only thing I cared about was the safety of the crew,” the semi-retired charter captain said. “The management did not pay attention and did not listen to us.
‘You have death on your hands’
“I’ve been sailing here all my life, I know the boat can’t withstand bad conditions. Our superiors say the neighboring stations at Montrose and Broughty Ferry may be able to intervene if the weather gets too rough, but it will take them 30 minutes to get here.
“That’s long enough to result in death.”
Mr Smith, who joined the RNLI in 2001 and served as a ground launcher until 2009 when he became operations manager, said he was eventually sacked following a private WhatsApp conversation in which he described his managers as “lying b—–“. leaked to charity. He was also reprimanded for speaking to a local newspaper about boat swaps without permission.
Another crew member who raised concerns about the charity’s management was Heidi Bakewell, 44, who left Pwllheli station in North Wales last month after concluding that “volunteers are disposable”.
‘Division and discord’
He was one of 12 crew members with a combined 170 years of experience who resigned following a fight with a colleague who spoke only Welsh during the rescue and was not understood by everyone.
The station was closed last August as the RNLI investigated the row, which was said to have caused “division and discord” as well as making rescue operations “unsafe”.
Ms Bakewell, landlady of a pub in Y Llong in nearby Edern, said the volunteers were ready to start over with a “clean slate” last month until managers told them they had to reapply for their roles, at which point 12 of them handed in their resignations . .
‘No news from management’
“This is absolutely devastating,” he told The Telegraph. “I am absolutely shocked that for a charity built on volunteers, management do not seem trained to deal with any non-compliance. “They have no idea.”
The allegations come as former staff at other RNLI stations told MailOnline they claimed to have witnessed “bullying”.
This includes Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex; Stewart Oxley, 55, a volunteer here for 37 years, claims he was stood down by management after opposing the replacement of the station’s £2 million all-weather lifeboat, which can carry 120 people. On a class D boat for three people because bosses said the dock the boat left from was unsafe.
An RNLI spokesman said “no changes will be made that would compromise safety” about the Arbroath row and a four-month consultation led to a change of boats, but an Atlantic 85, three Shannon-class and four D-class lifeboats made the 33 nautical miles from Anstruther It will “provide the best life-saving response” to Montrose.
We agreed to move forward
“We do not turn away volunteers simply because they disagree or face appropriate challenges in the decision-making process,” the charity added.
The spokesman said that after “relations between people on the station soured” over the Pwllheli row, two-thirds of the crew and 13 new volunteers had agreed to move forward and “an intensive two-week training period is now underway”. Return the lifeboat to service.
In response to further allegations in MailOnline, the RNLI accused the publication of “deliberately trying to diminish our 200th anniversary” and “choosing to retell essentially historical stories to create a false impression of our philanthropy”; this is something most of us just did. I don’t recognise”.