The Busiest Year for Nineteen Years.

THE year 1935 was for the life-boat service the busiest for nineteen years.

There were 378 launches of life-boats to vessels in distress. To find a larger number one has to go back to 1916, the third year of the Great War, when there were 386.

In one way it was a record year for launches. There have been other years in which the total of launches was greater, but these were years in which the number of life-boats was also greater. Nineteen-thirty-five, with a smaller fleet than any previous year, owing to the increase in the number of motor life-boats, has a larger average of launches per station than any other year in the history of the Institution.

The average was 2.24.

The number of lives rescued was 498. That is 144 more than in 1934, and the largest number rescued for the past seven years. Of these lives 393 were rescued by life-boats, and 105 by shoreboats, for whose rescue the Insti- tution gave awards.

Life-boats saved or helped to save from destruction 55 boats and vessels, the largest number for twenty years. In addition life-boats stood by, escorted to safety, or gave help to over 200 vessels and boats.

Up to the end of 1935 the Institu- tion had given rewards for the rescue from shipwreck round the coasts of the British Isles of 64,411 lives since it was founded in 1824. That is an average of 11 lives saved every week for 112 years. 114 Lives Rescued from Foreign Vessels.

Although the great majority of the lives rescued in 1935 were British, life- boats helped 16 foreign vessels, be- longing to 10 different countries, and rescued 114 lives from them. They were also called out to 13 other foreign vessels, but their help was not needed.

Of the 16 vessels to which help was given, 3 were Swedish, 2 French, 2 German, 2 Belgian, and 2 Greek. The other 5 were from the United States, Holland, Norway, Iceland, and Danzig.

Services to Yachts and Fishing Boats.

The year was notable for the large number of services to yachts and fishing boats. Life-boats went out to the help of no fewer than 32 sailing yachts, 13 motor yachts and 1 steam yacht in distress ; rescued 44 lives from them ; and saved or helped to save 26 of the yachts. They also went out to the help of fishing boats on 126 occasions; rescued 133 fishermen, and saved 26 of the boats.

Eleven Medals for Gallantry.

Eleven medals for gallantry were awarded by the Institution during the year. Its bronze medal was won in January by second-coxswain George Pow, of Appledore, Devon. In the absence of the coxswain he took com- mand of the motor life-boat when, in a gale with a very heavy sea, she rescued the three men, one of them a cripple, of the Hfracombe fishing boat Lee Bay, which was helpless close under the cliffs.

In September, Mr. A. C. Jones, honorary secretary of the life-boat station at Barry Dock, Glamorganshire, who took command of the motor life- boat in the absence of the coxswain, won the silver medal of the Institution, and each of the seven members of the crew the bronze medal, for rescuing the crew of the French schooner Goeland.

which was rapidly drifting towards the rocks in a gale, with her sails and rigging overboard. The life-boat res- cued the last man less than a minute before the schooner struck the rocks and began to break up.

On Christmas night Coxswain Thomas Sinclair, of the motor life-boat at Aberdeen, won the bronze medal for rescuing one of the crew of the Aberdeen trawler George Stroud, which had gone ashore inside the harbour-mouth in a very heavy sea. Five times the life- boat was carried away by heavy seas, and each time she returned to the rescue, but a heavy sea smashed the wheel-house of the trawler, in which her crew of five had taken refuge and only two of the five were saved, one by the life-boat and the other by the Institution's life-saving rocket appara- tus.

On 30th December Coxswain William Mogridge, of Torbay, Devon, won the bronze medal when the motor life-boat went to the help of the French trawler Satanicle. Three of the trawler's crew had been rescued by a liner which was standing by, and the life-boat then rescued the skipper. She travelled altogether some sixty miles at the height of the gale, and carried out the rescue in a very heavy confused sea.1 The Institution's Fleet.

During the year five new motor life- boats went to the coast, to Port Askaig (Islay, Argyllshire), Broughty Ferry (Dundee), Aith (Shetlands), Cromer (Norfolk), and Sunderland (Durham).

At the end of the year nine more motor life-boats were under construction, and there were then 124 motor life-boats and 44 pulling and sailing life-boats, making a fleet of 168 life-boats round the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland.

1 The service by Appledore was fully described in The Life-boat for last June, and the service by Barry Dock in The Life-bojt for last December. The full accounts of the other two services will be found on pages 4 and 5 oJ this issue..