The £30,000 D-class lifeboat is named Joseph Hughes in memory of a Rhyl RNLI lifeboatman who served as coxswain at the Welsh lifeboat station for more than 20 years.

His great granddaughter Gillian Smith and her family have funded the lifeboat and she will officially name it during a special ceremony attended by RNLI volunteer crew, fund-raisers and other supporters of the charity.

The new lifeboat is an updated version of the old D-class – one of the workhorses of the RNLI fleet – and is known as the Inshore Boat 1 (IB1). It has improved speed and manoeuvrability, with a top speed of 25 knots.

The Joseph Hughes will be formally accepted on behalf of the lifeboat station by Craster RNLI lifeboat operations manager Kevin Brown who said the crew is looking forward to receiving its new lifeboat.

He added: "Our new D Class lifeboat, Joseph Hughes, will help us reach casualties more quickly and will enhance the RNLI's lifesaving operations along the Northumberland coast. As a charity, the RNLI depends on donations from members of the public for its existence and without the generosity of people like Mrs Smith and her family, we would not be able to continue our vital work.

"Everyone at Craster RNLI is proud to have a new vessel named after such a distinguished lifeboatman and I know the crew will do their best to honour his memory when they and the Joseph Hughes are called out to rescue someone in trouble at sea."

The new lifeboat goes on service at Craster this week and replaces the lifeboat station's previous vessel, AB-One, which has come to the end of its operational life.

Mrs Smith, from Dorset, said: "I'm thrilled to be able to fulfil the long held wish of my late mother Marjorie to fund a lifeboat. Like her, I am proud of the family's long-term association with the RNLI.

"For me, it has been a bonus that the Joseph Hughes will be stationed in an area with such a long and proud lifeboating history, among the lovely people and beautiful countryside of Nothumberland."

Joseph Hughes was born in Rhyl in 1858 and came from a family of fishermen and lifeboatmen. He followed the family tradition and became a fisherman and a volunteer crewman with Rhyl lifeboat.

In 1898 he was appointed Coxswain of the lifeboat Caroline Richardson, a wooden-hulled, 12-oared boat built of mahogany. Joseph had six sons who all become lifeboatmen, including Mrs Smith's grandfather Robert.