A lifeboat house was built on Bells Road, and a 140-foot-long concrete slipway was constructed to the waters edge, at the end of South Beach Quay.

[3] William and Harriot was launched to the aid of the Swedish motor-vessel Hervor Bratt of Gothenburg om 29 January 1949, which had run aground on Trodday Island, Skye.

The Hervor Bratt would later receive assistance from the Campbeltown lifeboat City of Glasgow (ON 720) after her tow line broke during recovery.

[1][5] On 30 January 1962, the James and Margaret Boyd was called out to the motor fishing vessel Maime, which had broken down in gale-force conditions leaving Stornoway harbour, and drifted on to the rocks at Battery Point.

Arriving on scene at 20:35, the Bowman was injured by a flare, and he was returned immediately to the harbour, the lifeboat getting back to the Maime at 21:00.

A rubber dinghy was then borrowed from the nearby HMS Malcolm, and with both the Coxswain and John MacDonald veering down, the two survivors were pulled from the Maime.

[6] In the early hours of 29 September 1980, the Stornoway Solent-class lifeboat, 48-015 Hugh William Viscount Gough (ON 1020), was launched into a southerly gale to the aid of the fishing boat Junella, aground on rocks north of Skye.

[8] In 1999, the Max Aitken II was removed to the Relief fleet, later serving at Longhope, before being sold to China in 2005 as an operational lifeboat, named Hua Ying 385.