As the last of the sailing life-boats was replaced by a motor life-boat on the 12th of December, 1948, the term motor lifeboat will no longer be used. " Life-boat" will mean "motor life-boat." The one boat remaining which has not a motor, the second boat at Whitby, used only in the harbour entrance, will be called "the harbour pulling life-boat." In this number of the journal "motor life-boat" is used in the accounts of services up to the end of 1948.

The Last of the Sailing Life-boats AT half-past eight in the morning of Sunday, the 12th of December, 1948, a new motor life-boat, the St. Albans, arrived at New Quay, Cardigan, from the building yard at Cowes, after one of the stormiest passages which a lifeboat has ever had from the building yard to her station. She replaced the last of the pulling and sailing life-boats in the Institution's fleet.

The St. Albans is a Liverpool boat, 35 feet 6 inches long, with a beam of 10 feet 8 inches, and is driven by two 18-h.p. engines. She carries a crew of eight, and with gear and crew on board weighs 8J tons. She is a gift to the Institution from the people of St.

Albans.

The last sailing life-boat, which that day came to the end of her service, was the William Cantrell Ashley. She was a Liverpool boat, 35 feet long with 10 feet beam. She was rigged with jib, fore lug and mizzen. and had twelve oars. She carried a crew of fifteen and with crew and gear on board weighed just over 5 J tons, She was a gift to the Institution from Mr. Charles Carr Ashley, who died in 1906, leaving £65,000 to provide and endow five life-boats.* She was built in 1907 and had spent her forty-one years at New Quay. There she was launched on service 18 times and rescued 10 lives.

The first of all life-boats, the Original, built at South Shields in 1789, had only oars. The first sailing life-boat was built by the London coachbuilder Lionel Lukin for the Suffolk Humane Society in 1807, so that sailing life-boats have served on our coasts for 141 years.

When the St. Albans arrived at New Quay the William Cantrell Ashley sailed out to meet her and the two boats were filmed by the B.B.C's television unit. They were the first life-boats to be televised.

The William Cantrell Ashley has been presented by the Institution to the Outward Bound Sea School at Aberdovey, and on the morning of the 25th of February she sailed from New Quay * A full account of this legacy was pnblUhed in MM last issue of The Life-tio t.

for the last time manned by some of her old crew and by members of the committee of the New Quay station.

At sea she met the school's ketch Garibaldi, and a crew of the boys of the school took her over and sailed her tq Aberdovey. The school wrote to the Institution: " We are delighted with the life-boat.

Sailing her to Aberdovey exhibited her splendid qualities. She is going to be our most proud possession." "Exploits of the Old Sailing Life-boats" On the evening of the day after the St. Albans arrived at New Quay, the secretary of the Institution, Colonel A. D. Burnett Brown, M.C., T.D.. M.A., broadcast a farewell to the sailing lifeboats in a news talk in the Home Service programme of the B.B.C.

" For over a- century the old pulling and sailing life-boats have braved the worst of the weather round our coasts.

There is not a year, in those hundred years, without an exploit of their gallantry.

"There was a scene at the famous Cromer station in 1917 which not one of those who saw it will ever forget.

The life-boat's crew were old men—for the younger men had joined the Navy.

They came back with a rescued crew, exhausted after their long struggle.

Then they put out again to a second steamer. In the blaze of searchlights they could be seen at their oars, sometimes with the life-boat standing on end, next moment buried in the seas.

They fought on until five of their oars were broken, and three washed away; and then the life-boat herself was flung back on the beach. More oars were fetched; once more the weary men rowed her through the surf; and this time they returned with the steamer's whole crew.

"In a November gale in 1919 off Land's End a naval launch was flung on the rocks, broke into pieces, and in a few minutes had disappeared, leaving four of her men clinging to the rocks. There the Sennen Cove lifeboat found them. Her coxswain took her right through a gap in the reef, where a single mistake would have destroyed her, and rescued all the men.

" In another November gale in recent years the coxswain at Moelfre, Anglesey, found a wreck sinking. He sailed his life-boat right on to her deck, and seized her men. But the life-boat had had three holes broken in her. Full of water, she beat home against the gale all through the night, and arrived with two men on board dead, and her coxswain temporarily, but completely, blind.

" In those old life-boats there was not only danger and exposure, but often terrible toil. Once in the open sea they could set their sails, but to drive them through the surf, and again at the most dangerous moment of their task, when they came alongside the wreck, their crews had only the strength of their own bodies at the oars.

"From that toil the engines of the motor life-boats have freed the crews.

But do not think that the dangers are less. The motor life-boats can travel further. They can come sooner to the rescue. They can manoeuvre much more swiftly when they approach the wreck. But they can take bigger risks.

And they do take them. Less than two years ago all the men of another Welsh crew, from The Mumbles, lost their lives when their motor lifeboat capsized in a hurricane. So the work goes on, with a greater hope of rescuing life. But the dangers remain.".