There she lies in the Gorleston boathouse—a sturdy, tubular creature, greyblack like the seals on the nearby Scroby sands who, at her approach, dive and slither into the sea, splashing noisily.

Jack Bryan, mechanic of the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston crew, opens the boathouse door and prepares to launch her. "Fast and dead safe," he says with pride. "Nothing to beat her in good weather." Moments later he is sitting inside her, back braced against one side, feet against the other, hand on the throttle control. Slowly he guides her away from the boathouse, down the river mouth, then, turning the throttle between his fingers and palm, quickens her speed out into the open sea.

Her engine buzzes steadily, her broad black pug-nose thrusts upwards as she rides the waves. She bumps a little—bumps more where the sea's movement is stronger—and it is good to be able to hold tightly to the grab handles attached to her sides.

Turbulent and Unexpected After the steadier almost phlegmatic heaving of the conventional life-boat the turbulent motion of the inshore rescue boat is unexpected. Up, down, up, down she goes. It is not easy to keep fast to the wooden floorboard—the body rises involuntarily.

A large wave tumbles forward to meet her—a moment of panic—will she rise to it ? The boat rises, I seem to be grasping my stomach between my teeth, feel myself being heaved from the floorboard, then falling again. But it's the floorboards I meet, thank goodness, and not the cold collapsible surface of the sea as I had feared.

Jack Bryan steers her further into the open sea until the early morning bathers on Gorleston sands become pin pricks in the distance and the seals on Scroby sands become more distinct in shape. The inshore rescue boat is going at her highest speed—about 25 knots—and noses swiftly through the water, thrusting up a fantail of spray in her wake. The seals, watching from the sands, watch until they dare no longer. Almost in unison, as though obeying a leader's command, they go plopping into the waves, seeking safety in the sea.

Treacherous Scroby Sands Round the treacherous, shifting island of sand goes the boat, skirting the masts of submerged ships. For hundreds of years ships have met their fate here, going aground, then sinking deep and inextricably into the sands.

"Like to take over ?" he says, as he sets course for Gorleston again. We change places and I grasp the throttle control, obeying instructions. Sitting on the port side I pull the throttle control to the left and the boat goes right, push it to the right and she goes left, turn it anticlockwise and she increases speed, turn it clockwise and she decelerates.

Turning her through 180 degrees is less easy. It takes a more subtle combination of pulling and turning, changing direction but decelerating simultaneously, then opening up again. Try to change direction without decelerating and she will become a wild, self-willed creature spluttering angrily as the propeller cavitates.

Jack takes over again as we return to the river mouth. Enjoying her fast acceleration, he thrusts out his lips exultantly. He handles her with a proprietary air, like a proud parent showing oif a precocious offspring—and this is not surprising.

Great Yarmouth and Gorleston was one of the first stations to receive an inshore rescue boat and it was here that many of the initial trials were held.

For months after her arrival he tested her weekly with other members of the life-boat crew and with the Institution's technical staff. How fast would she go, what strength of wind would she endure, would her transom and floorboard withstand the thrust of the 40 h.p. engine ? Floorboards' Successful Debut The floorboards, as it happened, were one of the greatest problems. The mighty pounding from the sea, taken by inshore rescue boats at high speed, caused the locking bars of the floorboards to crack under the strain. Bar after bar snapped in two.

During 1963 a delegation from Great Yarmouth and Gorleston went to France to find the answer. It was in France that the inflatable craft had first been used by a life-boat society but they discovered that the French, too, were still seeking a final solution.

Back in Gorleston again, Claud Peacock, one of the crew and a builder by occupation, set himself the challenge of inventing a (virtually) unbreakable floorboard. A wooden framework, made to his design, was fitted in the boat and tried out. To everyone's joy, it withstood the strain.

This year the success of the "Gorleston floorboard" has been such that it has been fitted in inshore rescue boats at many other stations round the coast, and the French, keenly interested in the experiments, are planning to come and see it for themselves.

Shelters are being Planned While the problem of communication between the shore and the inshore rescue boat at sea has still to be resolved, experiments to prevent cavitation are already promising success and everyone is waiting eagerly for the results.

Next year members of the crew may be able to see new shelters for the craft for which designs are now being considered. Inshore rescue boats need to be protected from extremes of temperature and from possible damage, either accidental or malicious. The shelters will be placed on beaches and at other sites from which the inshore rescue boats can be easily launched.

Although one or two members were sceptical about the abilities of the strange new craft when she arrived last year, enthusiasm among the life-boat crew grew —encouraged by the forward-looking honorary secretary, Mr. Rey Ling, who felt from the beginning that inshore rescue boats were a new break-through in the life-saving services.

"The life-boat service must look to the future," he told them.

Steadily the inshore rescue boat proved her worth, streaking in and out of the life-boathouse at seconds' notice to rescue swimmers and the crews of boats.

"Picked up two men from a sinking trawler on the Scroby sands one day," says Jack Bryan. "We got them before the life-boat was half-way there." But the station's 25-year-old Louise Stephens, 46 feet long and over 12 feet wide, still keeps her prestige among members of the crew. She, says Coxswain George Mobbs, is the boat to trust in any weather, the boat which faces high gales and hurling seas without flinching, which can take on board nearly 80 survivors and return to her station with no more than salt-stained brasswork to show for it.

Coxswain Mobbs became coxswain of Great Yarmouth and Gorleston lifeboat six years ago. A dark stocky man, good-humoured and calm at the wheel, he was in the old pulling and sailing boat when young. He joined the crew at 20, a young man among the giants. In those days most of the crew were fishermen, strapping muscular men with the strength of horses, up to seven feet tall and nearly as broad. Their appetites were prodigious: 20 to 30 herrings at a sitting.

A man, after all, could not go to sea on an empty stomach.

He speaks of them with wonder. "The old boys weighed 18 to 20 stone, and could carry an engine gear box under their arms. They drank eight to nine pints before dinner and never used loud nailers—they could make themselves heard all over Gorleston when they shouted. You'll never see such men again." These were the men who belonged to the two companies of boatmen, the Gorleston Rangers and the Storm company. The companies were run by the fishermen themselves and had more than a passing interest in claiming a "good salvage".

A good salvage claim could eke out a meagre living earned by fishing.

Old Companies of Boatmen Paul Willement, who went to sea in the Gorleston Rangers' boat, the Elizabeth Simpson, describes a meeting of the old boatmen's company. "It was not like the meetings you hold in the Institution," he says. "Many years ago the Gorleston Rangers received about £600 in golden sovereigns as salvage money and they went down to the old Pier Hotel to share it out.

"The names of the men who had taken part in the rescue were read out from a piece of paper. One man stood up and shouted, 'You weren't there,' as another's name was read out. A fight began and the others had to take a sovereign for beer to keep the peace. Another name was read out, there was another argument and fight, then more beer all round. Finally everything was settled and a great deal of beer had been drunk—but there were fewer sovereigns for the share-out." Coxswain Mobbs remembers the robust humour of the old life-boat crews who entertained themselves at each other's expense. "One old man had a huge beard down to his waist and he was very proud of it, was old Puddy.

A Contrast in Ages "Well, one day they gave him a good drop of rum and milk in one of the pubs and one man took him to the barber's where he soon fell sound asleep in the chair. 'What does your old father want ?' said the barber to the other man. 'He wants a torpedo-shaped beard,' he said, and along came the barber with his shears.

"Well, you should have seen old Puddy when he woke up. The first thing he did was to finger his non-existent beard. He went up in that chair and frightened the life out of the barber. The other man took to his heels and ran away." One of the last of the former giants is Billy Parker, now 75, who joined the crew 44 years ago.

He still rows a boat single-handed carrying eight or nine people across the river and he can still eat more herrings for breakfast than most men eat in a day.

A huge man in his navy jersey and sea boots, he stands on the quayside while the inshore rescue boat is launched, and together they symbolise the contrast between old and new. For the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston station, a pioneer in the use of the most modern life-saving craft, is also a station where life-saving boats put to sea before the history of the Institution began. Here, too, is the station with the highest number of launches and lives rescued to be recorded by the Institution. Generations of life-boatmen have made 1,245 launches and rescued 1,808 lives since the Institution took over the station in 1857..