Exactly two centuries on, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is launching its bicentenary celebrations and has calculated that it has, so far, saved a total of 146,277 lives, an average of two a day.
The charity said its volunteer crews had launched 380,328 times and its lifeguards, which began operating in 2001, had responded to 303,030 emergencies on beaches.
The RNLI chief executive, Mark Dowie, said the service's work had transformed since it was founded 200 years ago and was now more likely to go to the aid of paddleboarders, wild swimmers, fishing boat crews or people trying to reach the UK in small boats than stricken ships.
The former naval officer said: "In 1824, about 1,800 ships a year were crashing into the coasts of Britain and Ireland. The work for the next 120 years or so was rescuing people from shipwrecks. The work has now changed dramatically.
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