The RNLI has already stationed a new lifeboat two miles away from a closure-threatened base at the centre of a community campaign.
George Rawlinson, Royal National Lifeboat Institution operations director, praised the work of the St Abbs crew after more than 13,500 people signed a petition to keep the station open but said the charity's decision to close the Berwickshire station was unanimous.
The Save St Abbs campaigners made the 450-mile journey to the RNLI HQ in Poole, Dorset, on Tuesday to hand in the petition to stop the closure due on September 8.
Campaigner Euan Gibson said "there is opposition to this right across the spectrum".
Mr Rawlinson said the RNLI "recognises and respects the time and effort that has gone into preparing and presenting this petition along with the depth of feeling concerning the decision to withdraw the lifeboat from St Abbs".
He said: "However, while we understand that it’s disappointing for those involved in St Abbs lifeboat station, the difficult decision taken by the RNLI’s trustees to withdraw the lifeboat was unanimous.
"The charity is committed to putting another lifeboat at Eyemouth to cover St Abbs, which is only two nautical miles away and this has already been done.
"The crew and everyone involved at St Abbs have proved themselves to be committed and courageous in their service to the RNLI in the 104 years that the station has helped save lives at sea and the RNLI is very grateful to them and the local and wider community that has supported them during their proud history."
Mr Gibson said the crew at St Abbs had been told the new lifeboat at Eyemouth was in place.
He said: "While we have no doubt the RNLI crewmembers at Eyemouth will be committed to doing as professional a job as possible with their new lifeboat, alongside their existing All-Weather (ALB) lifeboat, it doesn’t get away from the fact that replacing an Atlantic 75 with a D-class lifeboat is a clear and obvious downgrade to coverage along this stretch of coastline."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here