Welcome to the Un-official Website of Lowestoft & Southwold Coastguard Teams

Welcome to the Un-official website of the Lowestoft Coastguard Rescue Team and the Southwold Coastguard Rescue team.

Both Teams are co-located at the North Suffolk combined Rescue Base on the South Lowestoft Industrial Estate, Lowestoft, Suffolk.

With 9 Coastguard Rescue Officers (CRO's),on the Lowestoft CRT and 5 on the Southwold CRT who are all volunteers, coming from a variety of backgrounds, and are on standby 24 hours a day, 7 Days a week and are alerted by pagers.

Both Teams are paged by the Coastguard Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Great Yarmouth if required

Once arriving at the station the required team can be on route to an incident within minutes. Using 1 or both of the fully equipped, Emergency response 4x4 vehicles and a Towable Rope Rescue unit.

The Team members are trained in a number of Search and Rescue Techniques, First Aid, Rope Rescue and Water Rescue. Team member’s service ranges from 25 years to 8 months.

Formerly known as the Auxiliary Coastguard Service when it worked in support of full time Coastguard Officers, the Coastguard Rescue Service is now an established front line UK emergency response service capable of undertaking cliff and mud rescues, coastal and inland searches, coastal and inshore surveillance tasks from well equipped response vehicles plus a range of other maritime safety tasks.

As part of Her Majesty's Coastguard which is the emergency response arm of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the Coastguard Rescue Service has a long and proud history stretching back to the 19th Century with a great tradition of lifesaving. That lifesaving role continues but it is a very different rescue service today where the latest equipment, technology and techniques are used and updated as improvements are introduced through experience and research.