| Lifeboat College | |
| Map Type: | United Kingdom Dorset |
| Altitude: | 20NaN0 |
| Building Type: | College and national HQ |
| Cost: | £18 million |
| Client: | RNLI |
| Owner: | RNLI |
| Current Tenants: | RNLI staff |
| Address: | Poole, BH15 1HZ |
| Location Country: | England |
| Coordinates: | 50.72°N -1.99°W |
| Start Date: | January 2003 |
| Completion Date: | 2004 |
| Inauguration Date: | 28 July 2004 |
| Floor Count: | 5 |
| Structural Engineer: | Faber Maunsell |
| Main Contractor: | Dean and Dyball |
The Lifeboat College is the national training centre of the RNLI in Poole, Dorset, England.
The RNLI has around 4,600 crew members. The RNLI receives no government financial assistance.
The turf was cut in January 2003. It was built by Dean and Dyball of Hampshire. It was opened by the Queen on 28 July 2004.[1]
It is situated slightly north of, and next-door to, the famous speedboat manufacturer Sunseeker on the west side of Holes Bay, off the A350. Directly to the north is the large Asda Poole. On the opposite side of the road is the RNLI Support Centre. Also nearby is the RNLI All-Weather Lifeboat Centre (ALC)[2] which opened in August 2015.
It is a residential college and has sixty bedrooms.[3] It has an annual cost of around £1.1 million. It aimed to train around 4,000 people a year, although around 1,500 are currently trained each year. It often hosts exhibitions and conferences with organisations unconnected to the RNLI, such as trade exhibitions. It has a 120-seat auditorium.
A lifeboat simulator, with a five-metre-radius cylindrical visualisation screen with Digital Light Processing (DLP), was provided by Antycip Simulation UK of Oxfordshire.
It has a Sea Survival Centre with a 25 m × 12.5 m × 4 m deep wave pool.
On 5 February 2014, CBBC series 2 episode 3 of Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom visited the college, with instructor Matt Cridland. It was filmed on 24 September 2013.