Augustine Courtauld Can we please hear a bit more about 'the well known explorer' Augustine Courtauld, after whom the new Poole lifeboat has been named?—N. L.

STEWART, LIEUT.-CDR., RN, at RAF Staff College, Bracknell, Berkshire.

Born in 1904, Augustine Courtauld was educated at Charterhouse and Trinity College, Cambridge.

In 1926 and 1929 he went to Greenland with the late Sir James Wordie and during the latter expedition climbed Petermann Peak.

Between 1927 and 1928 with two companions he trekked on camel through the Sahara from Lagos to Dakar.

In the summer of 1930 he sailed from London with the British Arctic Air- Route Expedition to Greenland and there maintained meteorological observations on the ice cap until he was confined to his igloo by adverse weather conditions.

After five months alone he was rescued by Gino Watkins, leader of the expedition.

With two other members of the expedition he accomplished an open-boat journey round the south coast of Greenland. He subsequently got back to Copenhagen in November 1931. For this feat of endurance he received the Polar Medal from King George V.

In 1935 he returned once again to Greenland and climbed mountains named after Watkins, who lost his life after his kayak overturned.

He presented Walton-on-Naze with a lifeboat in 1953 and became a vicepresident of the RNLI, attending committee meetings in his wheel-chair until almost the end. He died in 1959.

He was a first-class seaman and enjoyed many cruises to Heligoland, Norway and the Orkneys in his yacht Duet.

We are indebted to W. P. Courtauld, a member of the Committee of Management, for this brief history of his late brother, Augustine Courtauld, after whom the Poole lifeboat was named by their sister, Lady Rayner, last May.—THE EDITOR.

Good wishes from seamen I enclose £45 for the lifeboat service.

It is the bar profits from our ship, Baltic Jet. We hope this small donation will help you in your work, which all seamen are well and truly grateful for. It is nice to know that there is always someone on call in our hour of need. Thank you once again.—j. M. BOWER, 21 Heston House, Minehead Road, Bransholme Estate, Hull, North Humberside HU7 4JX.Rescue on Redwood Creek While motoring westward on Redwood Creek one Sunday last July in our motor corvette Compass Rose, engaged on post-maintenance engine tests, I saw an 18' runabout of 'delta' manufacture, very low in the water and becoming more so stern first.

I was at the time flying my RNLI flag and thus, with the intention of doing what is probably the first RNLI rescue on San Francisco Bay, made up alongside the boat to find that the whole out-drive (Z-drive to you) had detached itself from the engine and transom, leaving a hole big enough to climb through, with somewhat inevitable result. The owner and his wife, while remaining calm, were doing very little by way of practical seamanship.

Being by myself I obtained a deckhand from a Sea Scout boat and we took the runabout in tow, after persuading the occupants to get forward and thus leave the hole above the waterline.

The boat was towed into Redwood City Marina without further incident, where the following statement wasmade in answer to 'What happened ?' Husband: 'I think I lost my prop.' In answer to a further question as to when he had last put oil in the out-drive, he said, 'You gotta oil 'em, huh ?' This is typical of SF Bay trailer boat operating; they had no lifejackets, no flares, no bailer, no seamanship and no oil in the out-drive.

Thus concluded what is probably the first rescue in these parts under the flag of the RNLI; I do not expect it will be the last.—R. w. v. JESSETT (Shoreline member 64713) on board MV Red Duster, Docktown Marine, PO Box D.B., Belmont 94002 Ca, USA.

End of a project Thank you very much for all the information you sent me on the lifeboat Institution and all the work they do for society. I really enjoyed doing my project and found it very interesting and wanted to help in some way. So last night I babysat and earnt a pound which I am sending to you. I know it is only a small contribution, but as I am still at school I don't earn any money, only the odd pound from babysitting.

I hope it will help the RNLI in some small way. Thank you very much.

—JULIA COOK, The Old House At Home, Love Lane, Ramsey, Hampshire.

Moving model from France I am sending you a picture showing my moving model of a French lifeboat station. This one was built for the last boat show in Paris (January 1975). The scale is 1 : 42. My brother Alain and I worked for 500 hours in two months.

When a visitor puts a coin in the collecting box a two-minute show starts: It is night-time; a little port sleeps. Only the lighthouse, the beacon, street lamps and fog horn keep watch. Suddenly the lifeboat siren hoots to call the crew.

The boathouse and floodlights come on, doors open and the lifeboat carriage slips down the ramp. On the lifeboat navigation lights, floodlight and radar aerial all work. There is also a Societe Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer patrol boat (navigation lights lit) and an ILB on a trailer with a jeep and her crew.

After a few seconds the sequence is reversed and all the lights go out.— PHILIPPE NACASS, 3 Rue de la Solidarite, 92120 Montroiige, France..