The location was considered to be an ideal position "whence a Life-boat can proceed, either under sail or in tow of the Admiralty or other steam-tugs, to shipwrecks along that coast and round the eastern approaches to Spithead."

The cost of the boat was defrayed by a fund raised in memory of the late Lieutenant William Pierre Lunell Heyland, RN, an officer of HMS Minotaur, previously decorated by the Royal Humane Society for gallantry, who hit his head on the stern of the ship, and was lost, whilst saving the life of a sailor who had fallen overboard.

[3] At 07:00 on 3 March 1897, having been alerted by rockets sent up by the Warner Lightship, the Southsea lifeboat Heyland was launched to the aid of the ketch Fox of Cowes, bound for the Isle of Wight with a cargo of stoneware pipes.

[6] At 17:50 on 13 January 1899, Heyland was launched into a WSW gale, to the aid of the ketch Queen of the Fleet of Portsmouth, on passage from Plymouth to Leith with a cargo of china clay.

With her sails blown away, and leaking badly, lifeboat crew were requested to go aboard and assist with the pumps.

The RNLI decided that the area would be adequately covered by the stations at Hayling Island to the east, and at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight.