CRYSTAL CLEAR A curious story emerged when the motor cruiser Ebb Tide of Chiswick lost oil and needed assistance on 9th June. The Dover, Kent, life-boat Faithful Forester—she is one of six 44-foot steel life-boats in service—went out at 6.37 p.m. She found the casualty at 8.46 and took her in tow to Dover.

The original distress call was picked up by a Securicor van on normal operations in Kent and then passed on to the Coastguard. All subsequent communications with the Ebb Tide were passed via Securicor at Ashford. The owner of the yacht later reported that 'his radio had been serviced by the contractors who maintain the Securicor equipment and he assumed that a crystal working on the frequency used by them had been fitted to his set in error'..