NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY EIGHT has been a year of splendid achievement for the Life-boat Service, overshadowed by a great tragedy.

During the year the Institution gave rewards for the rescue of no fewer than 591 lives. This is the largest number rescued in one year since 1923. Of these lives, 60 were rescued during ten days in the gales in the middle of November.

In addition to the lives rescued, 52 vessels and boats have been saved or helped to safety. Since the Institution was founded, 105 years ago, up to the end of 1928, 61,759 lives have been rescued from shipwreck round our shores, an average of 11 lives saved every week for over a century. The tragedy was the capsizing of the Rye Harbour Life-boat on November 15th (of which a full account is given on p. 193), with the loss of her whole crew of 17 men.

The majority of the 591 lives saved in 1928 were British, but once again our Life-boats have shown that they are a great international as well as a British service. Altogether 15 vessels belonging to 8 different nationalities were helped, and 83 lives were rescued from them.

Four of the vessels were French, three German, two Norwegian, two Dutch, one Italian, one Danish, one Belgian and one Latvian. In addition to these 83 lives from foreign steamers, 15 Chinamen were rescued from an English steamer. Two of the three principal services of the year, for which the Institution awarded its medals for gallantry, were to foreign vessels.

The outstanding Life-boat Service was performed by the Motor Life-boat at New Brighton, when it rescued the crew of 23 from a French steamer. It was a service of great danger, carried out with conspicuous skill and courage.

Coxswain George Robinson was awarded the Silver Medal and each of the eight members of the Crew the Bronze Medal.

(A full account of the service will be found on the opposite page.) Two other services were of special merit, and they were both carried out by the Life-boatmen of Padstow. On the llth February the smaller of the two Padstow Pulling and Sailing Life boats, Arab, rescued the crew of 18 of a Norwegian steamer, Taormina. The service was one of great danger, but the Life-boat was handled with conspicuous skill by Coxswain W. J. Baker, who was awarded the Bronze Medal, and he was supported by splendid work at the oars on the part of his Crew, more than half of whom had not been out on service before. (A full account of this service was given in The Lifeboat for last May.) The other Padstow service was on the 27th November, when the Steam Tug Helen Peele rescued the five men of the fishing boat Our Girlie, just before she was carried on to the rocks and went to pieces. For this service the Master of the Tug, Mr. J. Atkinson, was awarded the Bronze Medal. (A full account of the service appears on p. 209.) Two Bronze Medals were also awarded during the year for gallantry in rescuing life from shipwreck through other means than Life-boats. Mr. Thomas Boyle, of Quilty, Co. Clare, received it as the leader of three men in rescuing three men who had been marooned on an island on the 8th February. The rescue was carried out in a canvas canoe, with a gale blowing and a high sea.

The other Bronze Medal was awarded to Mr. Hugh Mac Kay, Senr., of Hilton, in Ross-shire, who, with four other men, went out at dusk on the 20th March in a whole gale, with a heavy sea and a dangerous tide running, to the help of a fishing-boat, the engine of which had broken down. The first of these fine services was fully described in The Lifeboat for last May, and the second in The Lifeboat for last September.

New Motor Life-boats.

IN other ways, 1928 was a very busy year for the Life-boat Service. Seven new Motor Life-boats were built, for Stromness in the Orkneys, Walton-onthe- Naze and Southend-on-Sea, Essex ; Swanage, Dorset; Fowey, Cornwall; Cromarty, Cromartyshire ; and Thurso, Caithness-shire. Sixteen other Motor Life-boats were under construction at the end of the year. The Life-boat Fleet on the 31st December numbered 205, of which 70 were Motor Lifeboats.

The year also saw the final trials of the new Tractor for launching, a full account of which appeared in the last issue of The Lifeboat, and the first steps in an important development in construction—the building of a specially fast type of Motor Life-boat for work in the Straits of Dover. This Boat is fully described on page 215.

The second International Life-boat Conference was held in Paris—twice as many nations being represented as at the first Conference held in London four years before—and a report appeared in The Life-boat for last September. It was once more made clear how valuable is such a full discussion and exchange of ideas. For all the Services are faced with similar problems of construction and mechanics, although the solutions vary according to the varying conditions of the different coasts.