The Aldeburgh lifeboat Lucy Lavers was constructed by Groves and Gutteridge on the Isle of Wight. Shortly after her completion, she was deployed for service at Dunkirk. Her exceptionally shallow draft of approximately 2 feet made her particularly well-suited for the operation, and she served alongside eighteen other lifeboats during the evacuation.

Lucy Lavers served as the Aldeburgh number two lifeboat for nineteen years. During this period, she was called out on thirty occasions and credited with saving seven lives before joining the relief fleet. Over her entire service, she was launched fifty-two times and saved thirty-seven lives.

In 1968, Lucy Lavers retired from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and subsequently became a pilot boat in the Channel Island port of St. Helier, Jersey. Later, she was used as a private fishing boat. By 1986, renamed L'Esperance, she was acquired by the Dive and Ski Club of St. Helier, where she was maintained by Mike Gibson. During the tourist season, she provided practical training for approximately four hundred trainees on courses conducted in the bays of St. Aubin, St. Brelade, Portelet, and the Island of Sark.

In 1997, Lucy Lavers was retired from active use and largely stripped to support the restoration of another lifeboat. However, her hull remained in good condition and was transferred to the Dunkirk Little Ships Restoration Trust. The Trust arranged for her transportation to Simon Evans boatyard at Sens, France, where she was well cared for. Subsequently, she was moved to the Trust’s new site at Marchwood, Southampton, for restoration.

In 2010, Lucy Lavers was passed to the charity Rescue Wooden Boats at the Hewitt Boatyard in Stiffkey, North Norfolk. The charity planned to restore her in time for a return voyage by sea for the Dunkirk reunion in 2015.