THE NEW LIFEBOAT produced through the efforts of thousands of Scouts in 'Operation Lifeboat' is to be stationed at Hartlepool. The allocation of the boat to this station happened by chance to coincide with a decision of the Committee of Management of the RNLI to award a bronze medal for gallantry for an exceptional action by a 14-year-old Ilfracombe Scout, Martin Ruddy. A full account of how Martin Ruddy saved the lives of four people and a dog appears on page 80. In the official account of the service it was stated that he had to make 'a long hard pull into dangerous and unfamiliar water'. This he did in a 9' dinghy which he had owned for only three weeks. The people he rescued watched him approach with a mixture of relief and grave doubt whether he would overcome the dangers of the swell and currents which he had to negotiate.

Martin is only the third boy to be awarded a gallantry medal by the RNLI.

No lives saved by lifeboat A very different kind of service by a lifeboat is reported on page 81. This took place in January 1975, when the Penlee lifeboat was called out after a report that the crew of the motor vessel Lovat were abandoning ship.The sinking of Lovat with the loss of 11 lives is the subject of an enquiry, but of the gallantry of the Penlee crew and the hazards they faced there can be no question. The wind was gusting to force 11, and the seas were the worst which Coxswain William Richards had ever encountered in the Penlee lifeboat. On the return journey the lifeboat had to face breaking seas of 40' to 50'.

When lives are saved such conditions can be faced, in retrospect at least, with a sense of satisfaction, but the dispiriting experience of the Penlee crew was that they were unable to save a single life.

New and busiest station RNLI records show that in 1974 the busiest lifeboat station was Sheerness on the Kent side of the Thames Estuary.

During the year the lifeboat was launched 55 times and saved 54 lives and 16 vessels. That Sheerness should have been the busiest station is evidence of the importance of flexibility in establishing new stations, closing others and changing, where appropriate, the type of boat in use. There was no lifeboat at Sheerness before 1969, but in that year, largely because of the withdrawal of helicopter coverage from Mansion, a lifeboat was placed at Sheerness on an experimental basis. Two years later the offshore lifeboat was supplemented by an ILB.

Convincing statistical evidence of the value of the inshore lifeboat is providedby the history of Newquay in Cornwall.

From 1861 to 1946, when the station was temporarily closed, the total number of lives saved by Newquay lifeboats was 121. In 1963 an ILB was stationed at Newquay. Since then some 250 lives have been saved.

Chairman in Ireland One of the first duties undertaken by the new Chairman, Major-General Ralph Farrant, was to visit lifeboat stations in the Republic of Ireland. His principal engagement was at the naming ceremony of the new Dunmore East lifeboat (see page 85). He took the opportunity to call on the President of the Republic of Ireland and presented vellums to the Howth, Dun Laoghaire and Courtmacsherry stations in addition to visiting Tramore, Youghal, Ballycotton and Valentia.

Operation Lifeboat Scouts from all over the country were the first to hear that 'Operation Lifeboat' had exceeded its target by over £1,000 when the total of £101,557 was announced at the National Scout Regatta in Nottingham on October 12.

The sum, the largest raised by UK.