A NEW SETTING for the R.N.L.I.'s annual general meeting was the occasion for a major policy statement, when the Chairman, Admiral Sir Wilfrid Woods, G.B.E., K.G.B., D.S.O., took the opportunity of offering, to adapt an American political phrase, a 'state of the Institution' speech. This speech is summarised on page 110.

The setting was the Royal Festival Hall, that outstanding memorial to the aspirations of the year 1951. It was a beautiful spring day, and the whole occasion was one which led a distinguished historian, who is likely to be compiling the next full length history of the R.N.L.I., to write that he was 'very moved by the wonderful prevailing feeling'.

In his speech Admiral Woods gave details of the R.N.L.I.'s current and future boat building programme, which have already been reported in these pages, and explained in measured terms why the programme was necessary. In doing so he made it clear that the R.N.L.I. would in the coming years have to increase its annual revenue by a very considerable amount.

Can this be done? Those who have long experience of the work of the R.N.L.I. and knowledge of its history have no doubt whatever that it can. In a speech which was delivered as graciously as she did everything else at the annual general meeting, the Duchess of Kent said: 'There are today many voluntary organisabytions working in a great variety of fields, but I do not think there can be any which is better known, or more of a household word, than the Life-boat Institution'.

This is the inestimably valuable basis from which we can advance. The carefully reasoned and deeply felt arguments propounded by the guest speaker at the annual general meeting, Captain Hans Hansson, Director Manager of the Swedish Life-boat service, presented in new guise the evident advantages of the voluntary system in a service such as our own. With faith in this cause, with the spirit which animates volunteers, and with the remarkable organisation of voluntary branches which the R.N.L.I. is fortunate enough to possess, the current problems of fund raising, none of which is intrinsically new, can almost certainly be solved.

OPERATIONAL POLICIES The essential purpose for which the R.N.L.I.

exists is so widely known and readily accepted that the Institution's operational policies are perhaps too seldom clearly defined and stated.

The following summary prepared by the Secretary of the Institution, Captain Nigel Dixon R.N., in a paper written for the Committee of Management, may therefore be quoted in full to advantage. The R.N.L.I.'s present policies, he states, are:1—All new construction life-boats between 35- foot and 55-foot in length are to have a built-in self-righting capability.

2—To improve the safety factors of some of the later non-self-righting life-boats.

3—To introduce into the fleet a fast self-righting life-boat to lie afloat.

4—To develop further the rescue potential of the small, fast inshore rescue boat.

5—To draw on any technical assistance available outside the Institution.

6—To man the Institution's life-boats and inshore rescue boats with volunteer crews wherever possible.

7—To operate the Institution's life-boats and inshore rescue boats by R.N.L.I. representatives ashore, whose advice must be readily available to all concerned.

IMPLEMENTATION OF POLICIES Among the measures taken to put these policies into effect will be a standardisation of life-boats brought into service. Thus the 37-foot Oakley self-righting life-boats will replace in time the life-boats of the 35-foot 6-inch, 41-foot and 42-foot classes, and self-righting Oakley or Solent life-boats of the 48-foot 6-inch class will replace the different types of boat ranging from 46-foot to 52-foot in length. Steel life-boats of the 44-foot and 50-foot classes, both of which are based on the United States Coast Guard design, will continue to be ordered, at least until a faster self-righting life-boat can be introduced operationally.

Existing life-boats will be modified in a number of different ways. Those of the 46-foot 9-inch and 47-foot Watson classes will have two selfinflatable bags fitted to them which will serve to bring them back to the upright position if they should capsize once. Modifications to the former Longhope life-boat, which improved her stability and made her after-cabin watertight, will also be made to other boats of this class.

Even more comprehensive modifications will be made to 47-foot Watson life-boats which will give them an inherent self-righting capability.

Meanwhile work will continue on the fast 52- foot self-righting life-boat. The prototype of this, details of which are given on page 109, has already been completed, and a second prototype is on order.

SPONSORED WALK The value of organising national fund raising efforts to supplement, and in no way to supplant, the fund raising efforts of branches up and down the country, was conclusively provedon Sunday, 18th April, when the first national sponsored walk on behalf of the life-boat service took place in many parts of England and Wales.

The moving force was the comparatively new Central Appeals Committee, which enlisted and received the enthusiastic response of over 120 branches. The sum of approximately £33,000 was raised, and as the photographs on pages 122- 124 show the response of the youth of the country to this challenge was vividly encouraging.

There are therefore solid reasons for hoping that the next major effort to be sponsored by the Central Appeals Committee, the national sponsored swim, will be equally successful. For this, the ASA Committee are inviting all their affiliated clubs in England and Wales to organise a sponsored swim in aid of the R.N.L.I.

These will be on a date convenient to each club's calendar but to take place before the end of 1971.

POWER BOAT RACE A rigid inflatable I.R.B. is to be entered in this year's Cowes-Torquay-Cowes power boat race as a sponsored fund-raising event in aid of the R.N.L.I. The boat has been provided by Atlantic College. Paddy McKiernan, an experienced power boat racer, his co-driver Geoff Allen, and Jeffrey Hawkins, the builder, have offered to drive the boat around the rugged 245-mile course under the name Fund Racer.

Two types of sponsorship are being raised, firstly by commercial organisations aiming at £1 per mile, and secondly individual sponsorships so that clubs, groups and well-wishers can join in.

For the purpose of the race certain modifications will have to be made, such as fitting more powerful engines, extra fuel supply, making the engine well water-tight, and fitting a spray canopy, but on the whole the profile will remain the same.

Sponsorship forms will be available at Lifeboat House.

LIFE-BOAT CONFERENCE Our next number will contain a report of the llth International Life-boat Conference which is taking place in New York at the time when this number is going to press. Distance and expense have prevented the R.N.L.I. from showing a conventional life-boat, as is the normal practice, but by the courtesy of Furness Withy Shipping Co. it has been possible to send for demonstration a hard-hulled inshore rescue boat known as the Bravo class, which is still under evaluation, but which other nations may well decide to adopt in due course for inshore rescue services..