Speedboat on Pye Sands • It was with very great interest that I read of the gallantry awards to members of the crew of Edian Courtauld for their successful rescue of a speedboat's complement on August 15, 1973 ('Lifeboat Services', spring 1974 issue). This particular event will be remembered by my family as being one that added drama and tension to the end of our holiday and underlined something of the inherent dangers of our chosen pastime. We were, in a sense, involved, and it happened in this way.

Three yachts, all members of Colne Yacht Club, were returning to Brightlingsea from Ostend. They were the Westerly Longbow Sagitta of Colne, abeam of her on starboard was Ian McGregor's sloop Blue Contessa while our own Westerly Renown Tei Tetua kept station to port. The total complement was six adults, numbering among them the secretary of the Hemel Hempstead branch of the RNLI, plus seven children. Having been at sea since 0645 we were greatly looking forward to picking up our moorings and catching up on sleep.

My log recalls the fact that Trinity Buoy was left close abeam on starboard at 2016 and course was altered to bring us heading down King's Channel.

Sundown brought us one of those quiet but clear evenings when the sky lacks some of the grandeur that may sometimes accompany banks of illuminated cloud, but I recall the chill that set in once the sun had dipped below the horizon. On went thick sweaters and one by one navigation lights appeared on the vessels within visual range. We had a relatively calm sea and modest breeze which enabled us to maintain a steady 4£ knots on course. All in all, the evening was well suited to our return.

In the gathering darkness, the tide carried us towards home, and the children were pleased to see the shore lights of familiar places welcoming us back. A merchantman, reading our lights, made a course alteration to pass to port of us as he made for the Barrow Deep and for a while our attention was on him. We sent him a briefly expressed message of thanks by signal lamp, and received his reply and watched him on his way.

It was 'about 2200', my log tells me, when a light on our starboard beam drew our attention. It was not the first, but as it burned out brightly my son said, 'Dad, that's a parachute flare!' As it faded we realised the truth of his observation. Earlier sightings had not been noted in the log, as we each of us agreed that we had thought them to be a shore light 'or something'.

Tension mounted rapidly. Sagitta of Colne had hauled so far ahead that she was only a white light in the distance, but Blue Contessa said she would make radio distress calls and hurry on to Brightlingsea to raise assistance. Tei Tetua hove to and kept a listening watch on 2182 kHz, maintaining a watch for further flares, but heard nothing except Blue Contessa''s mayday call, repeated several times.

Tei Tetua, now under engine, put about from a position about 1 mile east of West Gunfleet Buoy and headed north in the general direction from which the last flare was seen. Several times we thought we saw lights and on two occasions believed we saw a 'flare up' at sea level which we supposed might have been burning rags from the way in which the light intensity rose and fell, We rapidly ran out of water and found ourselves at one time with less than 6" beneath our keel.

Unable to cross the Gunfleet, we shut down the engine and strained our ears to catch any sounds of distress.

Twice we heard the sound of voices, or so we thought. We signalled by lamp, but there was no reply. How far we were from the speedboat I cannot tell, perhaps eight miles, and so it is pure speculation as to whether we had heard them or not. However, at the time we had believed the flares to have come from a point near Wallet No. 4 Buoy.

Having made several attempts to find a way across Gunfleet Sand into the Wallet without success, we had to admit defeat and made for Brightlingsea to report our sightings.

We arrived at 0200, soon after the other two yachts and HM Customs invited us to use their office to make the necessary telephone calls.

It was in a very relieved frame of mind that we returned to our boats about half an hour later. The children were still awake, waiting anxiously for news, and we were very glad to be able to tell them that, thanks to other people's watchfulness, the lifeboat had successfully rescued five people from off Pye Sands.

Seven children went to sleep, happier in the knowledge that, even if we had not been of any help, thanks to the RNLI another crew was safe.

It is our sincere hope that we shall never have need of the lifeboat service, either through press of circumstances or from our own shortcomings, but we draw comfort from having lifeboatmen at hand and from this example of their vigilance. From the combined crews of Sagitta of Colne, Blue Contessa and Tei Tetua may we send our warmest congratulations to those whose gallantry was on this occasion noted and rewarded and an equally warm greeting to all who serve in the boats of the RNLI.— D. j. MORL, 709 Lodge Road, Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex.

Thanks from father and son • I am writing to thank you on behalf of my wife, family and myself, for the rescue your crew made of my son Martin Wilmot and his friend, when their canoe capsized off Aberdovey beach. But for your prompt attendance the incident could have had serious consequences of which we are very aware.

I am enclosing a cheque for your fund. I would ask you to accept it as a token of our gratitude.—KENNETH j. WILMOT, 130 Mount Road, Penn, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.

% Thank you for helping to save my life last Saturday. I am sorry to have troubled you but we have been canoeing on the bar for many years and have never known it to be so rough. I have enclosed a postal order for your funds.

—MARTIN WILMOT.

When a visitor reported several canoeists in trouble just off Aberdovey Bar on July 20, both Aberdovey and Borth ILBs were launched to search. Borth ILB found two young boys in the water, took them aboard, gave exposure treatment and landed them at Aberdovey where a doctor and ambulance were waiting to take them to Towyn Hospital. One of the boys was 12-year-old Martin Wilmot, and T. A. Morris, honorary secretary, Borth ILB station, was very pleased when, subsequently, he received these letters of thanks from both Martin and his father.—THE EDITOR.

The Mumbles ? • I read Commodore C. A. S.

Colburn's letter published in the summer issue of THE LIFEBOAT regarding the fact that you refer to Mumbles as The Mumbles. You are quite correct in writing it as The Mumbles because that is the way it is known to all local people.

I am 78 years of age and was born in Swansea Valley and have lived there all my life. I have never known it to be called anything but The Mumbles.The Mumbles was very popular with us and on most holidays Valley people used to go down there as well as to Swansea sands. If anybody was heard referring to it as Mumbles we knew them as strangers to the locality.— D. H. WILLIAMS, Maesyfelin, 128 Gellygron, Pontardawe, Swansea SA8 4SJ.

Sir Winston and the RNLI % From my earliest days I was always a tremendous admirer of Sir Winston Churchill and, whenever possible, I would attend a meeting where he was speaking. This year, as well as being the 150th anniversary of the RNLI, also happens to be centenary of his birth: November 30, 1874. The name of this great man will always be linked with the lifeboat service in a number of ways.

Soon after I joined the staff of the Institution, I spent a few months at Head Office in Grosvenor Gardens. One day I was browsing through the Institution's journals, going back over a number of years, when my eye alighted on one for the year 1924; it contained a full report of the centenary banquet at the Hotel Cecil, London, and seeing Mr Churchill's name I read on with zest.

Mr Winston Churchill, as he was then, was one of the principal speakers and proposed the toast of the Royal National Life-boat Institution and the lifeboatmen of Great Britain.

Shortly after reading his speech, on March 12, 1954, I attended a dinner at Penzance to mark the 150th anniversary of the formation of the Penlee lifeboat station and I was given the task of proposing the toast of the ladies' guild.

I was fairly new to this sort of thing and so I thought I could not do better than to bring into my fairly short address a section of the speech Mr Churchill had given in London. The passage was perhaps the most moving part of what is, surely, inspired Churchillian rhetoric: 'It (a lifeboat) drives on with a mercy which does not quail in the presence of death, it drives on as a proof, a symbol, a testimony, that man is created in the image of God, and that valour and virtue have not perished in the British Race.' I was very glad I did so because Patrick Howarth was present at this function—at which the late Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Tedder was the guest of honour—and I think it was the first time the Churchill speech had been brought to his attention. As my very happy time with the Institution draws to its close. I would like to say that it is particularly gratifying to me that Mr Howarth has since made use of this most telling portion of the speech in various ways.

Toward the end of the war I happened to have the opportunity of having a short talk with Jan Masaryk, then Czechoslovak Foreign Minister. It was shortly after listening to one of the rousing Churchill speeches over the wireless, and I was saying to Mr Masaryk how wonderfully inspiring it was. He wholeheartedly agreed and remarked, 'The world will never realise what it owes to the vocal cords of that man'.

In conclusion, might I allude to a particularly happy episode of Sir Winston's life, namely his engagement to Miss Clementine Hozier, because it so happens that this has an association with the RNLI. Miss Hozier was staying with Sir Godfrey Baring—for 33 years Chairman of the Institution— and Lady Baring at Nubia House, Cowes, when she received an invitation from the Duke of Marlborough to stay at Blenheim. She went, and it was there that Winston Churchill proposed to her and was accepted — A. R. (BOB) DICKINSON, District Organising Secretary, South West.

Present, 1924 and 1974 9 The picture of lifeboats on the Thames at the centenary of the RNLI in 1924, published in the summer issue of THE LIFEBOAT, interested me very much. The leading boat is William and Kate Johnston. My wife and I are the present owners of this vessel, which is now in commission as a yacht, Jymphany, home port Dartmouth. We were present with the boat at the opening of the Lifeboat Exhibition at Plymouth.— L. w. LAW, Falaise, Castle Road, Kingswear, Dartmouth, Devon, TQ6 OBT A Skill to be learnt 0 From my observation of the boating behaviour of a large number of people, I am sure that at least some of the increase in calls on the ILB service during the summer months is due to sheer ignorance on the part of many who put to sea in motorboats and motor cruisers, mistakenly thinking that these craft require less skilful handling than sailing boats. I recently had occasion to go to the aid of a man whose engine had broken down, and whose boat was drifting on to a bank in a strong tide.

When I shouted to him to anchor, he made the alarming discovery that, although he had an anchor, there was no cable attached to it.

This is the kind of stupid situation which simply should not arise, but since it so often does—at, I am sure, great trouble to the lifeboat service—I thought you might be interested to know of the efforts the Lomer Motor Cruiser School is making to counteract the lack of basic knowledge of seamanship.

Since August 1968, I have been running five- and seven-day courses in boat handling, safety at sea, general seamanship and coastal navigation, and mine was the first motor cruiser school to be recognised by the Royal Yachting Association. The courses are divided between instruction given in our classrooms at Beech House, and on board our single screw Christina and twin screw Weymouth in the coastal areas between Chichester and Portsmouth.

We also run advanced courses, covering the syllabus for the RYA yachtmaster's certificate, and have started a small craft training centre for waterskiers and other users of small fast boats.

The aim of the school is to promote safety at sea. I hope that readers of THE LIFEBOAT, who, after all, share the same concern, will help us to achieve our aim by spreading the message that boat handling is a skill to be properly learnt; that one cannot just jump into a motorcruiser and speed off round the British coastline, or over to France; and that ignorance of the basic rules of seamanship COStS lives.—ROGER E. J. LOMER, Lomer Motor Cruisers Schools Ltd, Beech House, Rowlands Castle, Hampshire, PO9 6DP.

Stolen Yacht • Reading the report on the stolen yacht Susie Wong ('Lifeboat Services', spring 1974 issue), I wonder if you are aware of the ownership of this yacht? She is owned by Baden Davies, who served a total of 42 years as a crew member of Aberystwyth lifeboat, 11 of those years as coxswain.

Baden, now aged 74, is a familiar figure in Aberystwyth and still acts as harbour pilot for larger boats wishing to enter this difficult harbour. Living alone in a small house overlooking the harbour, he is often consulted about sailing matters by beginners and more experienced sailors, and his tales of his life at sea fascinate all who are so fortunate as to know him well enough to persuade him to relate them.

The holder of two vellums, one for bravery, awarded for his successful rescue in gale force winds of the MFV Pen-cwm on July 29, 1954, and one for long service, Baden has served in four lifeboats: John and Naomi Beattie, pulling and sailing, Frederick Angus, Lady Harrison and Aquila Wren.

At 13 years old, in 1913, Baden ran away to sea, joining a three-masted schooner, sailing out of Runcorn, as ordinary seaman and cook, pay 30s a month. Later he signed with Cunard, shipping as quartermaster on a Mediterranean trader.

Although no longer actively engaged in lifeboat work, Baden still helps with fund raising and is fascinated by the modern ILB. He regards her as 'a handy craft, faster than any previous boat and very good for inshore work', adding 'She is going to prove a marvellous boat—I wish we had had one when I was coxswain. You need to be a seaman and a technician to sail one of them.'—MATTHEW GILMORE, 60 Lawn Close, Oldham OL8 2HB, Lancashire..