By Captain Howard F. I. Rowley, C.B.E., R.N., Chief Importer of Life-boats.

THIS Life-boat left Cowes for her station on Saturday, 22nd October last. She is a sister boat to the new Plymouth Life-boat described in the last number of The, lifeboat, and is the third to be built of the 60-foot Barnett Twin Screw type. The first of the type, built in 1923, is at New Brighton on the Mersey, and before going to her station made a trip round the coasts of the British Isles, but that journey of 2000 miles, carried out for the purpose not only of testing the boat but of showing her to the public, cannot compare, as a test, with the Aberdeen boat's journey of 565 miles.

Though of the same type as the New Brighton boat, the Plymouth and Aberdeen boats have had certain modi- fications made in their design. One of the most important is that the petrol capacity has been increased by 100 gallons, so that they can travel 500 miles at their cruising speed of 8 knots, 200 miles more than the New Brighton boat. It had been intended to do what this increased fuel storage made possible, to attempt to make the journey to Aberdeen a non-stop run. As, how- ever, the journey was some 65 miles more than the fuel capacity of the boat, a stop of half an hour was to be made at Ramsgate simply to refill with petrol.

Commander Edward D, Drury, C.B.E,, B.D., R.N.R., Northern District In- spector of Life-boats, was in command, with a crew consisting of Coxswain T. M. Sinclair, of Aberdeen, the Second Coxswain and Bowman. Mr, William Small, District Inspector of Machinery for the Northern District, was in charge of the engines, with the Motor Mechanic and Assistant Motor Mechanic under him.

We left Cowes at 5.30 in the afternoon of 22nd October and ran at once into bad weather. Through the night and half the next day we were fighting our way against a gale from E.N.E. to E.S.E. with a heavy confused sea. All on board suffered much, and when we reached Ramsgate, a distance of 127 miles, after nearly 17 hours at sea, I decided that only if there were actual lives at stake would it be right to ask the crew to face the hardships entailed in making a non-stop run to Aberdeen in such weather. I left the boat at Ramsgate, where she stayed during the night of the 23rd, sailing on the morning of the 24th.

The second day's run was to Yar- mouth, a distance of 79 miles. There was a heavy and confused swell, with moderate N.B. winds, but towards the end of the day it was blowing a gale from the S.E. When the boat left Yarmouth on the third day the weather was fine, bat the wind soon began to rise, blowing from the N.N.W., and by the time Flamborough Head was reached a whole gale was blowing with severe hail and snowstorms. The gale increased and increased until, as Commander Drury wrote, the man at the wheel looked like "a rock in a waterfall," and the discomfort was so great that, after consulting the crew, Commander Drury decided, shortly before 2 in the morning of the 26th, to run to the lee of Flamborough Head.

There the Life-boat rode at anchor in a very heavy sea, with the tide running against it, and the crew were able to turn in. Commander Drury described that night as "the most remarkable and eerie " in his experience, for there was a wonderful display of electrical flashes in the sky. At daybreak on the 26th the Life-boat made for Brid- lington Harbour. When she reached it she had been at sea 15 hours of that third day and had travelled 138 miles.

She lay at Bridlington that day and the next night, sailing again on the morning of the 27th. in a very heavy confused swell. Then, off Whitby, a heavy fog came down. Through this fog Sunder- land was reached after 8 1/2 hours at sea.

The distance ran was 76 miles.

It was intended to leave Sunderland on the morning of the 28th, but, with a strong N.E. wind blowing and a rough sea, Commander Drury decided to wait.A start was made at 7.30 in the morn- ing of the 29th for the run to Aberdeen.

This was the longest run of the trip.

It lasted 19 hours, and 145 miles were covered. As soon as she left Sunder- land, the Life-boat met north winds with a heavy head sea, and against this she was running all the way to Aberdeen. So severe was the sea that the engines' revolutions -which had been 660 on the first day and 650 on the following days, had to be reduced to an average of 590. The •weather was bitterly cold, and during the last two hours there was a heavy snow-storm.

It was an exhausted crew which, in the early hours of 30th October, brought the Life-boat into Aberdeen.

The journey had taken 7 days and 8 nights, but the actual time spent at sea was 68 hours. The Life-boat had travelled in that time 565 miles, an average speed of 8J knots. Her highest speed is 9J knots. That is to say, in the face of very heavy weather with head winds and head seas nearly the whole way she maintained a speed of only one knot less than her maximum.

That is a high tribute to her crew, the Life-boat herself, and her engines. It shows too how fully the boat and engines have realised our chief aim, which is not high speed—for at high speed no crew could live in a Life-boat in rough weather—but a great reserve of power.

That point has been made more than once in The Lifeboat, but it is so important that it deserves to be emphasised again. It is that reserve of power which may make all the difference between success and disaster at that critical moment when a Life-boat is manoeuvring to get alongside 01 to get away from a wreck.

In view of the exceptional rigours of the journey, a special bonus was paid to the Crew, and the Committee of Management presented Commander Drury with an inscribed Binocular Glass.

It is, of course, impossible to compare a journey of this sort with an actual service, but certainly this journey was one of the severest tests to which any of our Motor Life-boats have been put.

I cannot do better than conclude with the final words of Commander Drury's report: " The Crew were splendid. . . .

In a seaway, with sea and wind ahead, the Boat proved a splendid seaboat. . . , During the whole cruise the greatest confidence was entertained in the machinery.".