Land was acquired from the local Lord of the Manor to build the new facility, which had a watch-room above the boat bay and a concrete runway down to the chalk roadway that led down to the beach.

[7][11] Hunstanton's position on The Wash, with its wide expanse of beach and mud flats, made launching the lifeboat at low tide particularly difficult.

The RNLI began to use Hunstanton for trials to assess the use of motorised tractors to launch lifeboats across such terrain.

The first trial, on 26 March 1920, successfully tested a Clayton agricultural tractor to tow the lifeboat out to the waters edge.

In 1979 it was agreed that the station would re-open, so the previous boathouse was reacquired and the RNLI provided a D-class inflatable ILB for a one-year trial.

The relaunched station was considered a strong success, and in 1982, the RNLI sent a B-class (Atlantic 21) Inshore lifeboat on trial, together with a new drive-on drive-off (DO-DO) trailer and a new Talus MB-764 County tractor, to launch the ILB.

She was named Spirit of America (B-556) on 11 May 1983 by Vice Admiral Donald D. Engen, a retired US Navy officer and the former president of the Association for Rescue at Sea.

[17] In 2001, Hunstanton was one of five lifeboat stations chosen for evaluation trials on a rescue hovercraft, the others being Morecambe, Flint, West Kirby and Southend-on-Sea.

The hovercraft spent approximately two weeks at each station where local crew members were shown how to fly the craft.