Terrible Winter Storms.

THE year 1925 was, until November, unusually calm, and this fact is reflected in the number of lives rescued, 383, as compared with 454 in 1924. la the last nine weeks of the year, however, there were frequent gales, of unusual severity, all round the coast, and nearly a third of the lives for the whole year were rescued during these nine weeks, the weekly average being thirteen lives. The gales were at their worst on the East Coast, where they were reported as the severest ever known, or the worst for many years. Some idea of their severity may be gathered from the fact that at Flamborough Head, on 25th November, the waves were estimated to be 30 and 40 feet high, and the spray was flying to the top of the cliffs, 200 feet above the sea. Further south, at Aldeburgh, in Suffolk, on the same day, the high tide and the northerly gale combined flooded the marshes. Flares were seen going tip from a house early in the evening, and two fishing boats were dragged through the town and launched on the marshes. When they reached the house, they found that its rooms were flooded and that the greater part of it had- collapsed. The seven people living in it were rescued and brought safely " ashore." It was on this day of exceptionally violent weather that two gallant services (described elsewhere in this issue) were performed by the Life-boats Humber at Donna Nook and the Services to Foreign Vessels.

Of the 383 lives rescued, 294 were rescued by Life-boats, and the remaining eighty-nine by shore-boats and in other ways, the rescuers in each being rewarded by the Institu- case tion.

The majority of the lives were British, but the international character and value of the Service was again shown by the fact that services were rendered to nine foreign vessels, three of them being French, two German, one Dutch, one Belgian, one Swedish, and one Spanish.

From these vessels over a hundred lives were rescued, that is to say, more than a quarter of the total. By the end of the year the number of lives for whose rescue the Institution had given rewards since 1824 was 60,358. During 1925 twenty boats and vessels were saved or helped to safety as compared with seventeen in 1924, New Motor Life-boats.

In other ways 1925 was an active year. Five Motor Life-boats were completed and sent to their Stations at Margate, Kent; Dunmore East, Co. Waterford ; Southwold, Suffolk; Holy Island, Northumberland; and Ramsgate, Kent, the last of these being the first of a new type, described elsewhere in this issue.

The Motor Life-boat for Porthdinllaen was also completed, but did not go to the Station, as at the end of the year she was being thoroughly overhauled after having been at Life-boat House at the British Empire Exhibition during the summer.

At the end of the year there were fifty-six Motor Life-boats on the coast in a total fleet of 217, and eight more, in addition to the Porthdinllaen Boat, were under construction, some of which will reach, their stations early in 1926. It is hoped by 1934 to have more than doubled the number of Motor Life-boats.

Not only did the year see the completion of the first of a new type of Lifeboat, but much attention was given during the year to the design of an improved type of Motor Life-boat for launching from a carriage, and also to the design of a Transporting and Launching Carriage, to be driven by its own motor, in place of the present Launching Tractor, which draws the Life-boat on an ordinary carriage.