A LIFEBOAT NAMING CEREMONY is always a happy occasion for a station, its supporters, and, indeed, the whole local community, but that at Port St Mary, Isle of Man, had a particularly pleasurable aspect. For while the RNLI has many lifeboats named after individuals who have donated them, it is not so usual for the donor to be present actually to perform the ceremony.

Happily, this was the case when Mrs Anne Ritchie named The Gough Ritchie, Gough being her maiden name. The new lifeboat is of the 54' Arun class, and will doubtless play a major role in search and rescue in the Irish Sea.

Mrs Ritchie has been a good friend to the lifeboat service, having previously donated James Ball Ritchie, the 37' Oakley lifeboat stationed at Ramsey, where she lives. During the ceremony the RNLI's chairman, Major-General Ralph Farrant, announced that she has been made an honorary life governor of the Institution.

A large crowd watched the ceremony and service of dedication, the curve of the harbour road providing an ideal vantage point. Among those there to see the naming were J. A. McLachlan, designer of the original prototype Arun hull, and Stirling Whorlow, former Secretary of the RNLI. For the special guests there were excellent tiered seats, normally used for TT races. The new lifeboat is not short of speed herself, and Mrs Ritchie can have been left with little doubt of the gratitude of Port St Mary station, as symbolised by the gift to her of a glass decanter engraved with a picture of the lifeboat; it was presented by Helen Quillin, daughter of Coxswain/ Mechanic Norman Quillin. Later, a crew member informally gave Mrs Ritchie a bottle of champagne: 'This is one we didn't break', he explained.

* * * After a boisterous night and wet start to the day, the sun came out late on July 24 to give a perfect summer Sunday evening for the naming ceremony by HRH The Duke of Kent, President of the Institution, of the new 52' Arun, Joy and John Wade, the sixth lifeboat to be stationed at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight. It was, as Admiral Sir Manley Power, chairman of Yarmouth branch, pointed out in his welcoming speech, just 51 years and two days since the first Yarmouth lifeboat had been named by the Duke's uncle, the then Prince of Wales.

Yarmouth was en fete: flags and bunting chattered in the breeze above a quay crowded with lifeboat supporters and holidaymakers; the harbour itself was packed with yachts and motorboats dressed overall, with fishing boats and dinghies, all fully manned with sailing people there to wish the new lifeboat well. Lymington Atlantic 21 was in attendance (and was to carry out a service, towing in a yacht, before the ceremony had ended); there was merry music from the Royal Marine Band to match the prevailing mood; and an RNLI flag could even be seen flying in benediction from the distant Church tower.

For Yarmouth crew, and for the lifeboat herself, moored bow on to the quay, it was indeed proving a memorable 24 hours. During the previous night, unexpectedly windy, Joy and John Wade had performed her first services since coming on station; she had been called out no fewer than three times and had been at sea for ten hours.

Three times, the night before her naming ceremony—'This', said His Royal Highness, when congratulating the crew, 'certainly constitutes a new record for the RNLI.' The first call, to a yacht with a broken rudder off St Catherine's Point, had come at 2115; 21 minutes after the Arun had slipped her moorings, on the first of the ebb, she was passing the Needles. It would have taken a conventional lifeboat about 50 minutes.

'That is the whole point,'' commented Leslie W. Noton, the honorary secretary, when formally accepting the boat on behalf of the branch. Having towed in the damaged yacht, the lifeboat was called eastward to another yacht, aground on Gurnard Ledge (two children were taken off, the adults remaining on board to tend the yacht), and then westward again to investigate distress flares sighted off Atherfield Ledge. The station was delighted with the boat's performance in the rough weather and with how much service her speed had made possible in the time.

Joy and John Wade was, however, back on station, once more shining and bright, when the Duke, together with another welcome visitor, Admiral of the Fleet The Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Governor and Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight, and Patron of the Yarmouth Lifeboat Appeal, arrived on foot from the Royal Solent Yacht Club, where there had been a brief reception.

Unfortunately, HRH The Duchess of Kent was unable to come, but the Duke brought her good wishes to the station and took back to her its greetings.

The new lifeboat had been provided by the Wade Foundation, the Yarmouth appeal and a number of generous bequests. John Wade was there himself, with his wife, to hand over the lifeboat to the RNLI on behalf of the Foundation, remembering the times he used to come in to Yarmouth as a yachtsman.

Present, too, were Major-General R. A.

Pigot, who had launched the Yarmouth appeal, and many representatives of the Island people and their friends from the mainland who had worked so hard to pass their target of £50,000 towards the cost of the boat.

Cheers for the Duke, after the service of dedication and the naming of Joy and John Wade, reverberated all round the harbour; the lifeboat turned three times in her own length (and that, indeed, was pretty well all the room she had in that crowded harbour!) and then, the Duke and Earl embarking, she set off for the sparkling Solent to renewed cheers, joyous music struck up by the band and a grand fanfare of hooters..