Amelia Luck CO18
Making history with the RNLI
We are proud to share that Amelia Luck CO18 has passed out as the first-ever woman qualified to take command of a Fowey RNLI lifeboat in the station’s 160-year history. Amelia passed out as helm on the station’s D-class inshore lifeboat, Olive Three. In addition to being the first female helm in Fowey, Amelia becomes one of only three female helms in Cornwall. There are just five female helms in the South West and 53 nationwide. Amelia was still at school when she joined Fowey RNLI as a volunteer lifeboat crew member, aged 17, in 2017. She has attended 134 lifeboat launches, of which 36 were rescue incidents, clocking up more than 355 volunteer hours at sea during this time. Being part of the lifeboat crew and the Truro School community is in the Luck family. Her father Adam is a Deputy Launching Authority at Fowey station and
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a current Truro School Governor, and her brother Oli is the latest family member to volunteer as crew and a recent Old Truronian from CO22. When asked how she feels to be the first female helm in Fowey lifeboat history, Amelia said, “I don’t really think of it like that, I see myself as just another helm. I don’t think there’s any difference, noone makes me feel any different here and it’s all very inclusive. One of the female trainers that I had at the RNLI college in Poole said to me that we can do anything the guys can do, we’ve just got to go about it in different ways sometimes. I can do exactly the same as the men and I don’t get treated any differently. It’s great to be the first female helm at Fowey but I think of myself as the same as the others. We’re just one crew really.” When she’s not volunteering for the RNLI Amelia is doing an apprenticeship in business management. She also works as a Harbour Patrol officer during the summer season in Fowey Harbour.
