Lifeboat quiz answers (from page 18) 1—(a) Aith, Shetlands;(b) Lowestoft, Suffolk; (c) St Helier, Jersey; and (d) Valentia, Co. Kerry.

2—The first lifeboat designed to work under sail was the Frances Ann, built at Lowestoft to the design of Lionel Lukin for the Suffolk Humane Society in 1807.

She was stationed at Lowestoft until 1850.

3—(a) At Newquay, Cornwall, the slipway near Towan Head had a maximum gradient of 1 in 2f. (b) Taking a slipway to mean the whole artificial pathway constructed for a lifeboat from the door of its house to the water, and adding on extra slipways sometimes built to facilitate launching at different states of tide, or for rehousing, the complicated ways built at St Agnes in the Isles of Stilly appear to qualify for this record—they totalled 1,068 feet.

4—If you consider Hartlepool and West Hartlepool as one, the RNLI had five stations there in the period 1875-1894. Two places had four stations—Sunderland between 1871-1900, and Gorleston (without Great Yarmouth) between 1897-8 and again 1903-4.

5—Pellew Plenty, of Newbury, Berkshire, who designed the first lifeboat officially adopted by the Institution; George Palmer, one-time Commander in the East India Company, whose system for fitting lifeboats was adopted in 1828; and James Peake, Assistant Master Shipwright at HM Dockyard, Woolwich, who designed a lifeboat including all the best features in all the models submitted for the Northumberland Prize. This as a prototype for the standard RNLI self-righting lifeboat of which hundreds were built for service at home and overseas.

6—The French lifeboat Jean Charcot, a 42-foot twin screw boat of the lie Molene station, which arrived at St Mary's, Isles of Stilly, in June 1941, with refugees.

She was lent to the RNLI and stationed at Fowey, Falmouth, Fishguard, Holyhead and Beaumaris at various times in her capacity of reserve boat. Returned to France in 1945.

The Belgian lifeboat Minister Anseele, a 46-foot modified Watson type motor lifeboat from Ostend station which was found derelict in the Channel by a naval vessel in September, 1940. She was also used in the RNLI reserve fleet and was stationed at various times at Donaghadee, Holyhead, Pwllheli and Plymouth.

Returned to Belgium in 1946.

The Netherlands lifeboat Zeemanschoop, a steel 41 -foot lifeboat from the Scheveningen station, came to England with refugees in May 1940. She was used by the Free Netherlands Navy at Harwich and Holyhead until returned in June 1945.

The Netherlands lifeboat Joan Hodshon, a wooden 34-foot lifeboat from the station at de Cocksdorp, Isle of Texel, came to England with refugees in April 1945, and returned four months later.

1—The station at Spurn Point, at the mouth of the Humber, is so isolated that the crew have to live nearby, occupying houses originally built by Hull Trinity House.

The two 70-foot steel lifeboats, by virtue of their ability to remain at sea for long periods, are also manned by permanent crews. They are stationed at Clovelly and Kirkwall.

The 70-ft steel lifeboat 70-001, having become the station boat at Clovelly, makes this station the second where a permanent crew is employed..