It probably won’t see much use as a first-line lifesaver. But the Buzzards Bay Coalition’s new lifeboat, unveiled Sunday at the lifesaving station opposite the Gooseberry Island causeway, fills a historic role in Westport and represents a new day after an absence of more than 100 years.

Dozens gathered at the old station Saturday morning to welcome the new boat, which was commissioned by the coalition and built by students at the International Yacht Restoration School over the past several years.

The 25-foot double-ended lapstrake cedar surfboat replaces another, previously on loan to the station, that has since returned to its home on Cuttyhunk — as such, this is the first time the station has had its own home boat in more than 100 years.

Under the arrangement, the coalition paid for materials and IYRS, as a non-profit school, supplied the labor free of charge.

When coalition members heard two years ago that the station’s old boat was being reclaimed by Cuttyhunk for a visitors’ center on the island, they started looking around for a replacement.

“We... very quickly realized we were going to have to build something ourselves,” the coalition’s Stuart Downie said during the boat's construction. “It’s got a lot of similarities to what would have been in the lifesaving station” during its heyday from 1888 until it closed in 1913.

“The great thing about it is it will be an actual museum piece.”

The boat is based on the design for the Race Point Surf Boat, many of which were built for the dozens of lifesaving stations that once dotted the coast from Provincetown and parts north all the way down to Buzzards Bay and Westport in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s.

IYRS and coalition members found an original, and plans to build one, at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Ct., and began working on the replica since the summer of 2023.

Pomp and circumstance

As befitting the historical moment, coalition officials pulled out all the stops Sunday. The Buttonwood Brass Band played ragtime and other old songs, a host of town and coalition officials, boat builders and mariners spoke, and many of the students who spent years working on the boat came out to see the result.

The next step: The boat will take part in Dharma Voyage's first-ever regatta scheduled for Saturday, June 7, and none may be more excited than Westporter Don Dufalt, who will be aboard.

Dufalt, a coalition board member who was formerly active in the Westport Fisherman's Association, was instrumental in getting the lifesaving station restored and closely followed the boat's construction.

As for the coalition's role in stewarding the old station and now the boat, he said while construction was still underway that he is pleased that the coalition took on the build, and now oversee the station:

“They have a good legacy (and) they’ve been great stewards."