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Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution

Netherlands Non Governmental Maritime Rescue Organisation (SAR)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ587175 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution (Dutch: Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij, abbreviated: KNRM) is the voluntary organization in the Netherlands tasked with saving lives at sea. For that purpose, it maintains 45 lifeboat stations along the Dutch coast of the North Sea and Wadden Sea and on the IJsselmeer. It maintains 78 boats ranging from small boat to 21 meter long RHIBs. It also provides lifeguard services at some beaches on the Frisian Islands in the Waddensea, and the beach of Wassenaar. Its headquarters have been in IJmuiden since 1996.

History

The KNRM was created on 1 May 1991 by merging the Koninklijke Noord- en Zuid-Hollandsche Redding-Maatschappij (founded November 11, 1824), called the Noord (North), and the Koninklijke Zuid-Hollandsche Maatschappij tot Redding van Schipbreukelingen (founded November 20, 1824), called the Zuid (South). Between 1824 and 2006, they answered 36358 distress calls and saved 79887 people out of distress situations.

Yearly they have about 1700 distress calls with about 3500 people saved (2008).

The KNRM also operates the Dutch Radio Medical Service (a task taken over from the Netherlands Red Cross on January 1, 1999) and provides medical advice by radio to about 900 ships each year.

Like the comparable Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which operates in the UK and Ireland, and the German Maritime Search and Rescue Service, the KNRM is entirely financed by private donations.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution” as netherlands Non Governmental Maritime Rescue Organisation (SAR). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Royal, Netherlands and Rescue.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 1991, 1824, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1991. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Royal, Netherlands and Rescue providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution”, the useful work is to connect “netherlands Non Governmental Maritime Rescue Organisation (SAR)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q587175. VIAF identifies the subject as 123351631. The Library of Congress control number is n2003017315. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1991, 1824 and 2006.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution primary sources, Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution archive and Royal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.