National Coastwatch is a charity staffed and managed by volunteers whose mission is to help save lives at sea and around the UK coastline. We are on watch in our stations, keeping you safe. National Coastwatch provides eyes and ears along the coast, keeping watch and monitoring radio channels to provide a listening watch in poor visibility. When people find themselves in trouble, we are there to alert HM Coastguard, who direct the appropriate rescue services to the casualty.
We have 60 lookout stations around England and Wales, from Fleetwood in the North West, through Wales, and around the English coastline to Filey, in the North East. All our stations are staffed by 2800 highly-trained volunteers from all walks of life.
Interested in volunteering and becoming an NCI Watchkeeper? Please contact us for more information – visit www.nci.org.uk. No previous experience is required; all training is provided, and you learn at your own pace. (Note this is a uniformed organisation.)
The local New Forest stations are based at Calshot Tower QAVS (Calshot Spit) & Stone Point (Lepe Country Park). The Solent coastline is very busy for all NCI stations. The distinctive NCI Calshot Tower, which looks out from Calshot Spit, was among NCI’s top five stations with 23 people rescued during incidents in 2024.
Photo: Calshot Tower QAVS & Stone Point NCI team at Emergency Services Day, Gang Warily on 24th May 2025 with our Station Mascot “Spot the Watchkeeper”
