One of the early (No 4) 37 ft Oakley Lifeboats.
Built in 1962 by Groves and Guttridge as Yard Number 595. Oficial Number 966.
Legacy of Mr Hardcastle and built at a cost of £33,000.
11 tons 16 cwt. 37 ft x 11" 6'. Fitted initially with Twin Perkins P4M 43 hp engines but these were replaced with the same model in 1983.
She served at Boulmer from 1962 to 1968 then moved to Filey.

The Oakley was designed by R. A. Oakley and like many other Lifeboats featured Water-ballast tanks which flooded when the boat was launched. Oakley took this a stage further and used a complicated system of Ballast tanks and valves to transfer water at critical moments to provide a self-righting capability. This system was fine when the boats were in service for the RNLI because maintenance was of a very high standard. However it was considered to much of a risk to sell this class of boat to private buyers as an incident involving an ex RNLB could not be tolerated. Consequently this class were placed on Land for display purposes.

Excellent background information on this vessel.

It's since been moved from the boatyard and is now in lower Middleton Road - just past the entrance to Navigation Point in Hartlepool.