A Looe RNLI stalwart who helped save 21 lives, answered more than 200 emergency launches and guided generations of volunteers has retired after three decades of service to the charity.

Brian Bowdler was honoured by crewmates during a recent social evening at Copperfish, as RNLI Looe Lifeboat Station celebrated one of the most influential figures in the station’s modern era.

Brian’s story is woven into the return of the inshore lifeboat to Looe. In 1992, the RNLI re-established a station for a trial season. At the time, Brian was a young commercial fisherman who remembers a winter drama at Hannafore when a trawler was stranded on rocks.

The coastguard boat was unavailable and the temporary station had already closed after the summer. Although the vessel eventually freed itself, the incident exposed the need for a permanent rescue presence.

That need, coupled with six lives saved during the 1992 trial season, helped secure Looe’s future as a fully operational RNLI station.

When the RNLI sought more volunteers, Brian worried fishing commitments might prevent him from serving. Instead, he became one of the station’s most dependable responders. Living close to the boathouse, he attended 23 of 27 shouts in one year alone.

Joining as crew in 1993, Brian quickly progressed and qualified as a D Class helm in 1997. In 2003 he trained to command the station’s new Atlantic 75 lifeboat, Alan and Margaret, arriving alongside the opening of the Albatross boathouse.

Even after stepping down as helm in April 2021, Brian stayed at the heart of operations, taking on Launch Authority and head launcher duties to keep crews rescue-ready.

The numbers underline his impact.

Since 1992, Looe’s inshore lifeboats have launched 1,064 times, aided 856 people and saved 66 lives. Brian was boat crew or helm on 205 of those launches, directly helping save 21 lives and aiding 321 people.

He spent 198 hours at sea on rescues and another 248 hours on training exercises, while also serving regularly as shore crew and head launcher.

Among the rescues was the saving of two sailors on May 3, 2001, when an Enterprise dinghy capsized off Downderry. Brian was one of a four-man crew commended by the RNLI chief executive. He later received a further letter of thanks from the RNLI Operations Director after another service in December 2009.

Lifeboat Operations Manager Clive Palfrey thanked Brian for his “service and commitment” to both the station and the wider community, while Regional Lifesaving Lead Tom Mansell paid tribute, saying: “I believe you have given a huge amount to the station and crew. Your experience as a professional mariner, your calm manner and friendly disposition is, and has been, hugely appreciated.

“You have seen the station through so much change from the early restart and D Class on a davit to the building of the Albatross boathouse and introduction of the Atlantic – to now.

“You have done your bit and you will forever be part of the incredible history of this fantastic station and wider organisation.”