THE LIFE-BOAT FLEET 155 Motor Life-boats 1 Harbour Pulling Life-boat LIVES RESCUED from the foundation of the Life-boat Service in 1824 to 30th June, 1955 - - 79,260 Notes of the Quarter H.R.II. THE DrKF. OF attended a meeting of the Committee of Management of the Institution on the 14th of July. 1955. Licutenant- General Sir Frederick Browning was in attendance. The Duke of Pklin- burgh is ex-qfficio a member of the Committee of Management as he is Master of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners. This was the first time he had attended a meeting, and during his visit to headquarters he examined with great thoroughness the drawings of all the types of life-boat being built today. Within a week of attending the meeting the Duke of Edinburgh, on a visit to the Scilly Isles, presented to Coxswain Matthew Lethbridge, of St. Mary's, the certi- ficate inscribed on vellum which accompanies the bronze medal. Cox- swain Lethbridge won his medal and vellum for the rescue of 25 people from the Panamanian steamer Mando late at night on the 21st of January, 1955. A full account of this service appeared in the June number of the Life-boat.

BUSIEST MAY EVER In 1955 life-boats were launched in May more often than they had ever been before in that month. The total number of launches was 65, and 84 lives were rescued. The category to which the greatest number of services was rendered was that of motor vessels, steamers, motor boats and barges. There were 20 launches to vessels of this kind and 45 lives were rescued. There were 15 launches to fishing boats and 13 to yachts, but as many as 20 lives were rescued from yachts and only 4 from fishing boats.

There were 6 launches to aircraft, 3 to small boats and dinghies and 2 to people who had been cut off by the tide. Life-boats were launched 3 times to land sick men, and there were 3 launches following reports of distress signals which led to no result.

GIFT OF FOUR NEW LIFE-BOATS Mrs. E. M. M. Gordon Cubbin, who died on the 21st of May. 1955, left a sum of money in her will large enough to pay for four new life-boats. Mrs.

Cubbin lived for many years in the Isle of Man and regularly sailed round the west coast of Scotland. She stipulated in her will that two new life-boats should be built for the Isle of Man and two for the north-west coast of Scotland. New life-boats will, therefore, eventually be built out of this legacy for Douglas and Port St.

Mary in the Isle of Man, Barra Island in the Outer Hebrides and Mallaig, Inverness-shire. The Barra Island and Mallaig stations will have 52-feet Barnett boats, which according to prices at the time of Mrs. Cubbin's death cost £34,500 each. Douglas and Port St. Mary will have 46-feet 9-inches Watson boats which at that time cost £30,000 each. The price of new life-boats of course, continually increases and the exact amount which the Institution will receive from the late Mrs. Cubbin's munificence cannot therefore be stated exactly, but it is evident that the legacy will be the biggest which the Institution has ever received. Among other big legacies received in the past were those from the late Mrs. Alice Pugh of Kensington, who died in 1944 and who left the Institution £68,828, and that of Mr.

James Stevens of Birmingham, who died in 1894 and from whose will the Institution received £50,000. This sum proved large enough for the building of 20 new life-boats.

USE OF DIRECTION FINDING GEAR A service carried out by the Rosslare Harbour life-boat on the 3rd of May provided the first example of the successful use of radio direction- finding gear fitted in a life-boat to locate a casualty. Direction-finding equipment is used in conjunction with the existing radio receiver, which is fitted as standard equipment. A fixed loop is mounted on the top of the after cabin, and a goniometer unit is fitted beside the receiver in the radio tele- phone cabin. The equipment can be used successfully only if the casualty or another vessel standing by can send out a signal on its transmitter.

This signal is then tuned in on the goniometer, and its bearing in relation to the life-boat is passed to the cox- swain. The equipment has been fitted experimentally in a limited number of life-boats. An account of the Rosslare Harbour life-boat's service is given on page 120..