Life-boat 70-002 on passage - At 10.50 a.m. on 7th November, 1968, while the Grace Paterson Ritchie life-boat was on passage to Westray, the coastguard told the coxswain that the doctor on Rousay had requested the assistance of the lifeboat to take a seriously ill patient from Rousay to Kirkwall. Course was altered at 11.52 and at 12.55 the life-boat berthed at Rousay. There was a strong south easterly wind with a moderate sea. It was shortly after high water. At 1.30 the sick man was embarked, accompanied by a nurse, and at 2.45 he was landed at Kirkwall where an ambulance was waiting to take him to hospital..