Annual General Meeting Thank you for the invitation to yesterday's presentation of awards and annual meeting at the Royal Festival Hall. I found it a most moving occasion.

For years I have lived alongside a famous lifeboat and known her successive crews well, some of whom have gained RNLI awards of various kinds, including the gold medal for gallantry.

I know that basically they are ordinary people who face incredible dangers and do tremendously brave things, often in appalling weather and other conditions.

The seemingly endless stream of just such men—and that girl, Jayne Edmunds, who had such presence of mind when it mattered most—reduced me, a case-hardened journalist, quite genuinely to tears, and at the end, having seen also Sir Alec Rose, after whom 'my' new boat is named, rewarded, I was too emotionally exhausted to cope with tea and small talk.

I wonder if people always feel like this at your annual event! But thank you for a most memorable afternoon.— URSULA STUART MASON, Public Relations Officer, National Maritime Museum, London SE10 9NF.

Parents and children Thank you for turning out on Easter Monday to help my daughter Jane when she had fallen on the cliff. We were lucky, she suffered little injury; but we were also lucky that so many people were able to help—the RNLI, the Coastguard and the Police Force.

As yours is a voluntary service I enclose a cheque as a small token of my gratitude.—NORMAN PILKINGTON, Borth, Dyfed.

Please find enclosed a cheque which I have been asked to pass on to you. I organise male chorus entertainment for private parties, for which a sum is sometimes given to a charity. Such cheques will normally be passed to your society in future, as continued gratitude for the rescue of my son in June, 1974.— KENNETH j. wiLMOT, 130 Mount Road, Perm, Wolverhampton.

Both these letters of thanks were sent to T. A. Morris, honorary secretary of Borth branch.—THE EDITOR.

End of a long association For many years Appledore lifeboat and RAF Chivenor air station have worked in close co-operation, both on rescue operations and on exercise. The lifeboat has taken out pilots from Chivenor for survival training and, during the summer months, it has been possible to make use of these exercises for publicity purposes off Westward Ho and Saunton and Croyde beaches.

Sadly, of course, Chivenor is now closed, apart from the helicopter which is to remain for rescue purposes, and the RAF exercise no longer takes place each week.

The photograph taken from Appledore lifeboat Louisa Anne Hawkeris of the last of the pilots being lifted from the sea off Croyde Beach. The exercise was arranged to coincide with our lifeboat week and several members of our committee joined the lifeboat at 1300 on Wednesday, August 7, 1974.

Conditions over the bar were extremely rough and grew steadily worse. Clovelly lifeboat, the 70' Clyde class Charles H. Barrett (Civil Service No. 35), was waiting for us at Fairways Buoy and both lifeboats sailed to Croyde Beach together, where a large crowd of holidaymakers was gathered; we collected more than £70 on the beach that day. A very successful exercise with the RAF made a fitting end to a long association between the two services.—A.J. GOODWIN, honorary secretary, Braunton, Croyde and District branch, 2 Cavie Crescent, Saunton, Braunton, Devon.

Mutual tradition Members of my staff and I have read with great interest the report of Divisional Inspector Pennell concerning the services rendered to MV Biscaya by the crew of the Great Yarmouth and Gorleston lifeboat station on December 13,1974.

While boat design and construction features are important factors in the accomplishment of rescue missions such as described in this instance, our experience has shown that the key ingredients to success are the skill, judgement and determination of the coxswain and his crew.

Certainly Coxswain J. Bryan and his crew have demonstrated this point in the highest degree. Their performance is in keeping with the best mutual tradition of our services in the saving of life at sea.—o. w. SILER, Admiral, US Coast Guard Commandant, Washington DC, USA.

Admiral Siler's letter, received by Lieut.-Cdr. W. L. G. Dutton, QBE RD RNR MNI, refers to a service (reported on page 6) carried out by Khami, one of the first of the 44' Waveney class lifeboats developed from a US Coast Guard design.—THE EDITOR.

Cover Picture Before I had even read the name on the stern of Ernest Tom Nethercoat on the cover of the spring issue of THE LIFEBOAT, I had already recognised the scene since I was the navigator of the boat towed in the previous evening. You can just see the blue stern of Corsair on the extreme right border of the picture.

Perhaps your readers may be interested in the story behind the picture, told mainly by the extracts from the log of voyage No. 1 given below.

My nephew, who has taken inshore fishing as his career, had recently bought the 32' ex-naval craft which had been converted into a cabin cruiser; we had joined ship the previous weekend to spend the first five days preparing forthe voyage from the Thames Estuary to Wick in Caithness, where the boat was to be re-fitted for fishing. We were later to be rather glad that we had taken care to provide ourselves with a lot of emergency equipment 'just in case'! Since she had no name she was christened Corsair and we sailed on the morning of Friday, November 15, 1974.

The weather, which had been bad till then, with winds of around force 9, was suitable for the passage, if not what one would like for pleasure sailing, and the forecast was reasonably favourable.

The first part of the voyage was uneventful, the boat behaved very well and we had settled into a nice rhythm of watchkeeping with one man at the wheel, one on lookout and the third off watch (but usually busy as well). Despite 28 years on the beach, the navigator had not lost the knack and by 0600 on Saturday, November 16, was using the RDF to get a fix off Bacton, there being nothing visible anywhere in the driving rain. The deck log goes on: 0605 2 miles off Bacton. Weather has turned foul, strong NE wind and confused sea. Vis.

1—2 miles; less in squalls.

Course 364"T.

0830 Altered course to 264°T.

1200 Off E. Sheringham Buoy.

300°T.

1300 Taking water. Hands to bail.

Set course 180°M for nearest land at Cley.

1400 approx Running along coast from Cley towards Blakeney to find suitable place to beach vessel.

1530 approx Cooling pump belt, affected by water and oil due to excess bilge water, failed. Engine overheated and stopped.

Streamed sea anchor 2 cables off Blakeney Point.

1600 approx Discharged flares. Seen from beach. Continuous bailing needed to keep water level at top of keelson. Drifting east on tide.

1700 approx Wells lifeboat alongside.

Taken in tow, all crew remaining on board. Bailing continuously.

1800 approx Beached in Wells Harbour near tide gauge. Reported to Coastguard and Harbour Master. Vessel left secured fore and aft.

Crew put up at Crown Hotel as guests of Shipwrecked Mariners' Association.

That is the recorded list of facts, rather sketchy as we seemed to have quite enough to do pumping and bailing out the major part of the North Sea (it even got into my deck watch, hence the 'approx' after the later times). It says nothing about the seamanlike way we were taken in tow and brought to Wells, or the fact that Second Coxswain A. T.

Jordan did more than just come on board: he bailed continuously all the way to Wells so that the two who had borne the brunt of the task earlier in the day could have a rest, of which they were by then in some need.There is no mention there, or in THE LIFEBOAT, of the enormous assistance the crew gave us after we beached and next day when they returned to see what more they could do for us, but we shall never forget their kindness. I am sure I speak for all three of us when I say that our principal memory of the event is of the way the lifeboatmen, the harbour master and other people of Wells spared no effort to help us.

They, if they remember the incident at all, may like to know that Corsair recently completed her refit and, as I write, she is probably seeking the elusive lobsters off the coast of'Caithness in region of latitude 58°15'N.—G. E.

SMYTHE, 9 Camborne Road, Button, Surrey.

Not forgotten...

I am enclosing a cutting from The Cornish Times which may interest you, as the idea was inspired by the rescue of three members of Looe Sailing Club from a Hurley Tailwind by Poole lifeboat in the early morning of April 14, 1974.

I was one of those concerned, and I would just like to let you know that the good efforts of the lifeboat are not forgotten.

'Packed houses on both nights greeted the Music Hall staged at Looe Public Hall in aid of the RNLI The show opened with a lively chorus from the Riversiders trained by Sheila Rigby. This was followed by "The Roaring Twenties", a mixture of comedy and music by members of Looe Social Club which brought back nostalgic memories for the older members of the audience.

Looe's answer to the Morris dancers, contributed by the Boscarn darts team trained by Audrey Coote, was an uproariously funny interpretation by six males and horse. A complete contrast was provided by four tiny tots, Susie Grimshaw, Lulu Symons, Claire Nichols and Lisa Rawe, who entranced the audience with their Spanish dancing. They were also trained by Audrey Coote.

Duets were sung by Jim and Betty Currah and Trevor Baker and Peter Soudy, and Tessa Marshall sang to her own guitar accompaniment. Ken Dingle played the accordion, two of the numbers being of his own composition.

Members of Looe Players staged two short plays, which the audience enjoyed for their humour and local dialect.

Comedy was well represented by Dave Pengelly, who doubled his BBC newsreader act with that of stableman to the Morris dancers' horse while Beryl Clements and Sheila Rigby showed that this kind of variety is not a male prerogative.

Accompaniment was ably provided by Sheila Rigby, Alan and Jean Dingle, and the show was compered by Nick Nicholas who also gave a well-received comedy act of his own. The show ended with a "Black and White Minstrels" act by the Riversiders.

Work on the show was started by Valerie Tyndale-Biscoe . . . . When she had to go into hospital, Audrey Coote took over the preparations and put on the show. The highly successful production raised £95 for the RNLI.' M. w. TYNDALE-BISCOE, Turnstones, Plaidy, Nr. Looe, Cornwall.

They say it may become an annual event, so good luck to future productions.

—THE EDITOR.

The Plenty Lifeboat A letter relating to Plenty lifeboats appeared in the winter issue of THE LIFEBOAT and I thought that perhaps your readers would be interested to learn that in 1824 William Plenty built a new lifeboat for service at Newhaven station. Newhaven was, as I am sure you know, the third port in the country to have a lifeboat stationed there for the sole purpose of the saving of life from shipwreck, a fact of which we are justly very proud.

The boat was 18' x 6i' x 2i' and pulled only four oars. She came on station in 1825 and the cost was £90— what a change from today. In 1829 she was repainted and renovated at a total cost of £12. She was sent to Cowes in 1829 where she was, it seems, broken up.

If any of your readers are interested in early lifeboat history, particularly on the south coast, I should be very pleased to hear from them.—A. s. PAYNE, 36 Firle Road, Peacehaven, Sussex..