Four Winds, Wade Lane, Wade Court Road, Havant, Hampshire.

16th September, 1956.

DEAR SIR, I am writing to express my extreme gratitude to the coxswain and crew of the Selsey life-boat for their rescue of my family, my friends and myself from the yacht Maaslust on July 28th last.

The circumstances in which the rescue was carried out were of the most difficult. My boat, a 40 ton steel ketch with a wide rubbing band and heavy leeboards, was drifting broad- side on in shoal water towards a lee shore. She was virtually out of con- trol, since the after part of the rudder had snapped and her sails had blown out, and, with seas 30 ft. high break- ing over her, it must have been extremely difficult to get alongside at all. The manner in which Mr. Grant held the life-boat on our windward quarter while we boarded her, was beyond praise. Had he made any error of judgment our twenty-two month old son and Mr. Phillipps' twelve-year-old daughter would have had little chance of survival. The wind at this time was of hurricane force—96 m.p.h.—and such conditions had never before been experienced in the locality.

During the same trip, Mr. Grant rescued the crews of Bloodhound and Coima in an equally faultless manner.

I should be pleased if this letter might be published as a small expres- sion of our appreciation of a most admirable feat of seamanship, and our thanks for the preservation of our lives.

Yours faithfully, (signed JOHN P. WILLS.

A number of other letters of thanks and appreciation and gifts followed the I services carried out on the 29th of July.

The owners of the Tees-mood made a donation to the funds of the Institu- tion; one of the members of the Tees- wood's crew who was rescued wrote a letter of thanks; "an onlooker" also wrote to express his appreciation of the efforts of the Dungeness crew; and a statement was made at a meeting of the Lydd Borough Council declaring: "These efforts and achievements will take a high place in the long list of gallant rescues in the history, not only of the Dungeness Life-boat Service, but of the service of the Royal National Life-boat Institution, and we in this old Borough are proud to have such brave men living in our midst".

For the services carried out by the Selsey life-boat letters of appreciation were sent by the owner of the yacht Bloodhound and the people rescued; the owner and crew of the yacht Coima sent a gift to the crew; and a woman whose grandson was rescued sent a donation to the funds of the Institution..