PROTOTYPE LIFE-BOAT'S FIRST SERVICE Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. At a quarter to midnight on Tuesday the 17th September, 1963, the Needles coastguard reported to the coxswain that two boys had been missing on Tennyson Down since 5.45 that afternoon and the police feared they had fallen over the cliff. The new life-boat The Earl and Countess Howe left her moorings at 12.5 a.m. on her first service call and searched the coast between the Needles and Freshwater and Alum Bays. As she was returning towards Freshwater Bay the two boys were located by searchlight on the beach beneath the high cliffs of Tennyson Down. It was impossible for the lifeboat to get close in, so the position was buoyed and the L.S.A. company on the cliff top was signalled by Aldis lamp with a request for the assistance of a small boat from Freshwater Bay. It was high water and misty with light airs from the west-north-west. After picking up the dinghy the life-boat returned and took off the boys and put them ashore at Freshwater Bay, where a police car was waiting for them. It was found that the radar and echo sounder fitted to the new life-boat were invaluable on this serivce.

The boys' father made a donation to branch funds..