Ramsey RNLI has retired its lifeboat, the Ann & James Ritchie, after 30 years of service.

The town’s lifeboat institution described the farewell as a ’slightly protracted one’, as since the boat’s official retirement in December 2019 the Mersey-class lifeboat had been stored in Peel, before being returned to Ramsey harbour in March in 2020 with the aim of being taken to the UK to join the RNLI’s ’stationless’ relief fleet.

This was delayed with the interruption of the pandemic, and so the Ann & James Ritchie was placed in dry land storage on Ramsey’s South Promenade, across the road from the RNLI station.

She is now on her way to the UK to join the relief fleet, with strict Covid-19 precautions in place for the transfer process.

Speaking about the year-long delay, Ramsey RNLI joked that ’unofficially we think that she didn’t want to leave Ramsey until she got her 30 years in’.

Her current replacement on station in Ramsey is the ’slightly more modern’ Ruby Clery, Peel’s former Mersey-class lifeboat.