[1] Nevertheless, plans of possible Steam lifeboat designs were placed on display at the International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry in Liverpool, opened by HM Queen Victoria in May 1886, and an RNLI committee was formed to investigate.

[2] However, in early 1888, shipbuilders R & H Green of Blackwall, London submitted plans with a scale model fof a Hydraulic Steam-Powered lifeboat, which was approved and commissioned.

It was accepted that the benefits of use in shallower waters outweighed the extra cost of fuel that the turbine demanded, and also that there were limitations to the deployment of the boat, as it would have to be moored afloat.

[2] Sixty years after the idea was first suggested by Sir William Hillary, and after extensive trials, the first steam powered lifeboat, the 50-foot Duke of Northumberland (ON 231) went into service at Harwich in September 1890.

[3][7] To replace this boat, a final Steam-powered vessel was commissioned, a much larger 95-foot Steam-Tug, the Helen Peele (ON 478), designed by George Lennox Watson, and built at Ramage & Ferguson, Victoria Shipyard, Leith, arriving at Padstow in 1901.