Knockdown . . .

. . . DURING A WINTER OF UNUSUAL FEROCITY IN THE EARLY HOURS of Christmas Eve 1977 Kilmore lifeboat, the 37ft Oakley Lad Murphy, and St Ives lifeboat, the 37ft" Oakley 'Frank Pen/old Marshall.

were both out on service in storm force winds and some of the worst seas experienced for many years. There had been a long period of hard southwesterly wind which had fetched a very big, heavy swell into the western approaches and high seas were generated right across the area from Cornwall to the Irish coast Frank Penfold Marshall took a tremendous sea on the beam and was rolled over on to her beam ends: Lady Murphy took a similar sea on the quarter but she was capsized twice, righting herself each time and each time her crew were able to restart the engine immediately. One crew member washed out of the lifeboat during the first capsize and three of the four crew members washed out during the second capsize were rescued, but tragically one man lost his life Two months later, on February 19, 1978, Torbay lifeboat, the 54ft Arun Edward Bridges (Civil Service No. 37) was knocked down on her beam ends by an exceptionally high wave while on service in an east-south-easterly storm.

Once again, there had been a long period of high wind, this time from the east, and conditions in Lyme Bay were very bad. The very big sea which broke right over the Arun's flying bridge was estimated to be 30 to 35 feet with an additional 12 feet breaking top. One man was swept overboard but he was recovered safely.

When lifeboat people met in London last May for the annual presentation of awards, Vice-Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet, chairman of the Lifeboat Crew Safety Working Party set up by the Committee of Management, took the opportunity to hold a discussion with the honorary secretaries, coxswains and some crew members from these three stations together with divisional inspectors of lifeboats and other operational staff.

Much was to be learned from such a forum, which included coxswains and crew members who had been overtaken by freak seas such as few encounter and who had handled these situations with skill and success. From Kilmore there were Coxswain Thomas Walsh, awarded the silver medal for gallantry; Acting Motor Mechanic John Devereux, awarded the bronze medal; and Acting Second Coxswain Joseph Maddock, the man who had been swept out of the lifeboat twice and recovered on each occasion. From St Ives there was Coxswain Thomas Cocking, Senior, who was awarded the silver medal. From Torbay there was George Dyer, at that time Coxswain and awarded the bronze medal. It was of great value to the working party in its allotted task that it should be able to take into consideration the experiences and suggestions of such seamen.

Later in the morning, after the main meeting had ended, conversation continued informally between the five lifeboatmen and Captain Roy Harding, trials officer RNLI, who has himself been a lifeboat coxswain and who has had experience of going right over in a boat; he remained aboard an Arun lifeboat, strapped in her coxswain's seat, during her self-righting trial. Parts of the discussion which followed are reproduced here so that lifeboat people in general can share some of the firsthand descriptions of the three services.

One subject raised by Captain Harding wax whether there had been any forewarning of the exceptionally high seas which had caused the knockdowns; whether there had been any premonition of what was approaching, any change in the sea pattern, any increase in the wind? Coxswain Thomas Cocking, Senior, St Ives: There was no forewarning, none whatever. We were outward bound 17 miles north of St Ives Head. We got a recall. Red flares off Porthtowan. We came back, oh, six miles. On the way back the boat behaved beautifully. We were all happy with her. We were singing, actually. Some of the chaps were singing carols. We were nine miles from Portreath when the second mechanic, who was on my starboard hand, shouted, 'Look out, Tommy!' and when I looked, there was the sea just rolling up. It completely covered the boat; right over. We were going along full speed. The next thing, she was just picked up and we were on our beam ends. I held the wheel as tight as I could. I was holding on to the binnacle so that I had the wheel spoke held hard against my wrist. The wheel couldn't move. I thought I kept her straight.

When we came out of it the second coxswain said, 'Tom, I can't see any lights.' I said, 'Eh? They aren't there.1' And that boat had literally turned on her port side 100 degrees And we brought her back. It seems ages when you are on your side going along like that. Endless. And you are saying to yourself, 'Now is she going?' Then up she comes. 'Thank God for that, men!' You know, everybody holds their breath for a minute.

Coxswain Thomas Walsh, Kilmore: It took us completely by surprise, too; no doubt of it. There were pretty big seas running all right, but there was no heavy breaking water whatsoever. We had come for miles and we had seen nothing like that. Then we seemed to come on a wave that was just coming to the point of breaking and we just rolled with it and went right over. It must have been just as the wave comes to breaking and it must have just picked us up under. There was no sound at all.

Then the noise started coming like breaking water in, around and under the boat. She had run on it. But the minute she started running she was toppling as well at the same time. You know, when a wave comes on the break, how the head curls over? We must have just gone right over with her.

Jimmy Bates, the former coxswain of Lady Murphy, was out on the corner of the pier watching and afterwards he asked, ' You didn't go end over end, did you?' I suppose he had seen the navigation lights and then they went down and disappeared and he could see the stern light. But actually we didn't. We went to port. You could feel her rolling over. But to him looking from a distance away it seemed that we had gone end over end.

The second time I could hear the wave breaking, coming down on us, but we hadn't time to bring her up to this one either. I gave her full ahead on the starboard engine to bring her up to weather. The wave was coming at us from port. Thinking about it afterwards, there must have been ropes in the screw on the starboard side or something because she didn't respond very well.

Coxswain George Dyer, Torbay: It was so slow, it took us by surprise. You'd never think it was going to happen. She went over so slowly we were all looking at it, laughing. Then a couple of seconds and up she came. Beautiful. It was the topping that knocked us over.

We had a pilot boat in tow but she was up on the top of it. We had the worst of it, I should imagine. When we were looking up aft, as you do, she looked as though she was coming down with us as we went. But when the pressure of water came off and the lifeboat came up, everyone, even the bloke who had been washed overboard, seemed to come with us.

The second coxswain took the wheel and I went aft, because the second coxswain isn't a big man. The biggest of us went aft to keep the tow clear and bring the man in the water aft to where there was more arm room. It was a problem of weight. The guard chain tended to foul our lifejackets and then we had got to lift a tidy bit of weight about four feet, I should imagine, plus a bit of motion. We didn't like that because I could see that the man had hurt his arm. We tried to push him off until the right sea came to bring him in all in one go.

After a boat had recovered from such a knockdown the whole crew would be drenched; there would be cold and discomfort. Did they also, perhaps, experience some disorientation, asked Roy Harding? Were they at all confused? Dyer: No problem at all.

Cocking: We were all bound for land, quite happy. Then the sea hit us and I saw the assistant mechanic, David Smith, going past the back of my head at the rate of knots. 'My God!' I said, 'That's one gone!' As soon as we came back upright the first one I shouted for was David. I heard his voice there, behind me, and he was jammed down behind the seat. The signalman, he was down on the deck, round the second coxswain's legs. He got up. 'You all right?' I asked. Yes, he was all right.

'Where's John Thomas?' David said, 'He's under me.' There was John underneath and the assistant mechanic on top of him, both jammed behind the back of the seat. When they had all got up and I had looked under the canopy to make sure my boy and the mechanic were there and we had sorted things out, I said 'How are you feeling?' 7 can see the lights in there,' came a reply. I said, 'That's all we want. Carry on searching.' The morale of the crew was still all right. I asked them, 'What do you think about going back?' 'No, we're going to search.' And that's it. I asked their opinion. I don't make a decision unless I ask them. I'm only one. There's six others besides me. We passed the message through the Coastguard to the honorary secretary: 'Radar and MF out of action. Took big sea. Crew all OK'. Message came back: 'Are you happy about your position?' A few choice words! I said: 'Message to honorary secretary: We are nine miles north west of Porthtowan. Proceeding on our search.' And we carried on for another four hours.

Walsh: Thinking back afterwards I found that some things stood out very clear, and I suppose those were the things that were going through my mind. The minute she came back after the first one I shouted out for everyone to shout back that he was there. Had a roll call. And I found that there was one man missing. I didn't know who it was then. We checked again and we found out fast enough. Then we thought that he should have been somewhere in the boat. Let's see if he's had a knock and lying down the other side, maybe. We couldn't believe that we had lost one of our crew overboard. Every second seemed like hours, going back to look for him. I thought we would never find him again. I was really delighted when I heard someone say they could hear him shouting.

Acting Motor Mechanic John Devereux, Kilmore: The first thought in my mind was, 'Would the engines start again?' So I just went down and pressed the buttons, and the minute I pressed them she went immediately without any hesitation at all. It was like music to my ears.

The man who had been swept out of the lifeboat twice was Joe Maddock and Roy Harding asked him about his feelings; had he perhaps felt despair the second time? Acting Second Coxswain Joseph Maddock, Kilmore: If I could start at the first occasion, my greatest fear was that the boat wouldn't come back to me. First of all I thought that there was nobody else left in the world but myself; that everybody else had gone.

So when I saw the lights coming on in the boat I think I came back to life. But on the second occasion I was quite close to despair. I thought the boat couldn't come back a second time. I didn't think it possible that the men could have done so good a job the second time. So I was really delighted when they came back and picked me up again.

Before the first capsize John Devereux and I were having a discussion about the boat. I said I would go anywhere in her and John said she was sticking to the swells like a stamp, I think his expression was. And practically within seconds of that I was in the water. When I went underneath I wondered which way up I was. The lifejacket worked perfectly. It was only a matter of seconds and I surfaced. I gave a few shouts when I came up to see if there was anybody else in the water. Two things ran through my mind. Should I kick off the boots or keep them on? If I'm heading for the rocky shore I would be better with boots on my f e e t . . . So when I saw the lights coming up on the boat—they probably were on all the time but the boat had gone quite a distance away from me—I kicked off the boots and held on until Tom headed back up to windward again. When I thought he would be close enough to hear me, I gave a few more shouts. So they took me on board.

Earlier you raised the question of brains. Personally my brain seemed to be racing very clearly. I didn't think I had a brain until that night! I was thinking of so many things that there wasn't time. You know, I thought, Christmas Eve; terrible night for something to happen. What will they think at home? Will the boat come back for me? Will I kick off the boots? Will the lifejacket keep me up? Should I swim for a fender —I saw one off the boat and stayed close to it because it looked very bright in the water. It was all over in a few minutes. On the second occasion they had some of the lads back on board and then they had me back and I was overjoyed.

The lads must have been reacting the same, you know, because they did all the right things. Nobody seemed to be frozen or dazed or anything like that. It all seemed natural . . .

Devereux: It all seemed part of the night's work . . . .

Discussion turned to the problem of getting a man out of the water and everyone agreed that it was far from easy, even in a lifeboat which has verylittle freeboard. Could the present practice drills be augmented in anyway to help lifeboat crews? Walsh: We were so short of manpower the second time. With four in the water it only left three on board. I never thought it was as hard before to get men back into a boat. But it would be hard to simulate the circumstances you would meet on a night that will capsize you. You've not only got a man in the water but you have chaos on board as well. Your mast is down and fallen across on the side; there are stays; there are aerials; your plastic canopy down round about you and you can't get near the wheel without picking it up to climb in under. Your movement on deck is very restricted, even to go to the help of anyone. It would be very hard to simulate it all.

Dyer: You've got a scrambling net. It's all there, but at the time all you are interested in is getting that man out of the water. My crew member seemed injured and we wanted him aboard. We could have put out the net if we had stopped and thought, but by that time, in those conditions, we might have lost him.

Cocking: Have you any experience of an inshore lifeboat? That's where you learn how to get a man aboard with a lifejacket on. With an ILB you turn him back on to the boat, dunk him and let him come to you and he'll float up to you beautiful. And you take him in. we do the same with the big lifeboat. If a man goes in, when he comes alongside, back on, dunk him once and he comes back on easily. They come aboard all right if you can get them to turn round.

But if you are the one in the water? You know the feeling! I've got you now! You're not turning me around! I'm coming on! Maddock: They tried to turn me round Walsh: He was holding on to the lifelines . . .

Maddock: I said, 7 won't let go!' Harding: Joe, when you felt the boat going over, did you consciously hang on to the boat or did you push yourself off clear? Can you remember? Maddock: I have been asked that question a good many times. I couldn't give a definite answer as to what happened on the first occasion. But on the second occasion I was very definite: I held on for dear life with all the strength I could command. But I was still swept off. It was something like going down a slope with the turning over movement of the sea piling in and I was just swept out.

Earlier in the morning Tom Cocking had told the meeting that in severe conditions he makes his crew pull the plugs on their life jackets so that, if anyone should go overboard, the lights can activate as they are immersed without the man himself having to take any further action. Roy Harding asked him to explain how he decides when to give this order.

Cocking: Well, say we are called out. If it is a flat calm you don't need your lifejacket light on; you are not going to capsize a lifeboat in a flat calm. If there is a gale of wind, say from force 7 up, especially down our way where we get the big nor'wester with a big ground swell, the plugs are pulled. If a man is hit on the head and he is unconscious, he can't pull the plugs in the battery to get the light working. Now you are searching for a man who is unconscous and all you are depending on is the reflecting strips on the jacket. But if the plugs have already been pulled the battery will be activated by the sea water and the light will come on automatically.

Talk continued about equipment, and about the boats . . .

Devereux: How did you keep your VHP dry when your boat went over like that? Cocking: My boy had his back against it. He jammed himself right up in the corner. As we were going he saw what was happening and he put his foot against the battery box and stood up, and he is six foot. He was jammed up in the corner and the radio was all behind him. It was a very poor experience for him because he saw everything happening in front of him: the lights going out; the deckhouse going under; Phillip, the mechanic, is gone; his father is gone; the water coming up ... He said to me afterwards that he would not like to go through that again. I said, 'Do you want to pack up?' 'No, thank you.' Did any of your lights go out at all, John? Devereux: No, Tom. We had them on.

Walsh: The compass light went after the first time, that is all.

Cocking: We lost our compass light when we were coming back. We had plenty of seas coming at us, although not like the one that knocked us down.

I got the crew to give me the masthead light and rigged it up as a jury compass light.

When we were coming down across the bay St Ives Coastguard called: 'St Ives lifeboat. I can't see your blue light. Where is it?' 'Nine miles off, where do you think!' It was the only thing we lost off her, that blue flashing light. The sea ripped that right off the top of the mast, so you can guess how far she was over.

Devereux: Everything worked perfectly as regards the machinery of the boat.

Harding: There was a time, in the early days, when self-righting lifeboats were not very popular with some of the older crews. How do you feel now? Are you happy to have a self-righting lifeboat? Walsh: I think that's obvious—yes! We wouldn't be here otherwise! Cocking: For two years they were trying to push an Oakley on to us. We wouldn't have her. Didn't want to know anything about it. We'll keep our Liverpool: you keep the Oakley. They capsize too easily. But I'll tell you now, let anyone from head office come down and say they are taking Frank Penfold Marshall away and, you know, we'll chain her down! You are not having that one, and this time we mean it! Harding: John, going back to the engines, you would say that familiarity with the position of the controls, so that a chap, in the dark, would be able to go to them straight away, is essential? Devereux: Yes, that is essential. It is also essential that every man on the lifeboat should be able to start her engines, regardless of the mechanic.

The full crew should be able to start her at any time.

Cocking: I agree. All the crew should know how to start the engine. Supposing nearly everybody was thrown out of the lifeboat, leaving, say, just two men aboard. Start? Which way do you do it? You've got five men in the water and nobody knows how to start the engines. You are in the same trouble as if the boat was in the boathouse. Every one of my crew knows how to start the engines of Frank Penfold Marshall now.

The same argument applied to taking the wheel of the boat . . .

Cocking: If you have got a boat out on service in poor weather, by all means you are the man to stay on the wheel.

But if you are out on service or on exercise in fine, good weather, you have got six men with you and they should take a turn. It's possible for me to go over the side the same as anybody else; somebody has got to go and catch the rope . . .

Our boat went out on exercise recently. I walked up to the honorary secretary and said, 'I'm not going.' "What?' he said. 'I'm not going,' I repeated. 'Let the second coxswain take her.' The second coxswain took her out. He was just coming back when a message came over the radio: 'St Ives lifeboat: proceed to Forth Kidney Sands. Vessel ashore.' They took off 24 hands. And there I was standing on the beach looking a fool! I said, 'What have I missed?' But never mind. That man took the boat on his own and did the job, and that's what I want. It gave him more confidence doing the job without me there.

And so the conversation turned to crews . . .

Dyer: Crews are born, you know. You can't train a crew. You can tell immediately who are going to make good crew members. They have only got to come once. It falls out of them.

But you cannot get it out of some blokes at all. It isn't there to start with.

Harding: Some people have sea sense and some people don't.

Cocking: Lifeboat work is bred in the man that is doing the job. If it is not bred in you, you won't do the job. One of my boys was driving me mad for two years. I didn't want him in the boat.

The only reason I didn't want him there was that I have lost my whole family once before. If I go out, lose him and lose myself, that's another family gone.

I didn't want him but he's there in my boat. I couldn't keep him out of it.

Dyer: With a fast boat you cannot afford to take a bloke on service who hasn't been before. Fair enough on a practice, but on a shout I would sooner go without than grab anyone.

Harding: Do you feel, George, that with the faster boats you need a younger man? Dyer: The Arun is a young man's boat, I can assure you of that.

Harding: Because of the increased acceleration? The crew is bound to be thrown about a lot more on board.

Dyer: Yes. Even in a force 4 when you have got any wind on the bow you need the seat strap on. It eases you back. If you are not strapped in you try to fight the sea, but if you are strapped in, even in just a little bit of plop, you are rocking along.

The cold can be intense on a wild winter's night, particularly for anyone who has been in the sea or soaked with salt water . . .

Walsh: Everyone was really shivering, though I felt warm enough, that is until I got up to the boathouse. A couple of hundred yards on and I was really shivering.

Harding: That would probably have been nervous reaction, wouldn't it? Maddock: You don't feel cold in the water; that is one thing that doesn't enter your head. You never think about the cold until after. After the first capsize I thought I was about the best one of all of them. After the second capsize, though, I was very shocked. One thing that is most important when you go under is not to swallow salt water.

It's a funny thing, but it was impressed on me that if you are in the water and you keep your mouth shut there is a good chance of survival. I had high blood pressure; they said from swallowing salt water. The Red Cross insist that anyone who has been in the water should always be treated for shock.

There is exposure and shock will have set in. It's the cold. I called out to Dermot Culleton. He was perfectly likely to be shocked as well, but he stayed watching where we were going, and I said, 'Keep talking to me, whatever else happens, keep shouting and I'll shout back. If I don't shout, make sure you get an answer from me.' Because you see I have this thing that if you fall asleep you are a gonner. I think 1 was shaking the whole bow part of the boat. I knew I was badly shocked because I was vibrating all over.

Walsh: You know that feeling of shivery cold. While you are moving around and working it seems all right.

Cocking: It was all right at full speed.

Quite warm. But when we got in close to land, we had to ease down because we were in shoal water—not more than 6 or 7 fathom of water—and there were breaking seas all the time. The flare was seen from Porthtowan, so we had to search from three miles off and we kept going in, and in, and in, until we were 50 yards off the rocks. That's when we felt the cold, when we had to ease down. Everybody was out on deck with a searchlight going and all that lot. We've got one hand light and we used the Aldis lamp as well. I had had enough myself because I had had eight hours on the wheel.

Harding: You carried on for hours after your knockdown. When you do these long services you never seem to get tired, do you? Do you find that you are given some sort of extra strength? We had a very long search on one occasion when I was coxswain of the 70-footer. I wasn't off the bridge for 51 hours.

When it was all finished I was absolutely flat.

Cocking: The reason is that you are there to do a job. You know you are going out to save life and while there is someone out there, you'll keep going.

You keep plodding and plodding. I've done 16 or 17 hours on the trot, but when you get in and settle down and think about it ... oh, I'm all right . . .

sit down in a chair by the fire . . . the next thing, you are gone . . . asleep.

Dyer: Once you have done the job and you relax, the heat gets hold of you and you are gone.

Devereux: When we came in that night, the people on shore were wonderful.

When you look back, the heart is in the right place.

Walsh: Everybody was marvellous.

Cocking: You were the same as us.

Two of the ladies' guild were waiting for us that morning when we came in.

They had bacon sandwiches and tea all laid on. It is usually the chairman and treasurer who do it. They are up every time we go out. But the whole town at home was interested because, as you know, in 1939 we lost a boat. I suppose this was the closest we have been to it Harding: Later that evening, still on Christmas Eve, Lt-Cdr Brian Miles was on duty in the 'Ops' room at Poole and a phone call came through from Captain Kemp, the honorary secretary at St Ives, at about 10 o'clock, saying that they had made their repairs, completed their running tests and the crew was just going to stand down. They had had a whip round and they had about £60 which they wanted .to send to Kilmore as a contribution to any fund which might be set up in memory of Fintan Sinnott, the crew member who had been lost. And that was just two hours before Christmas.

Walsh: We had great support from all stations, every one of them. It was a great help.

To round off the discussion, Captain Harding asked the three coxswains whether they had any good advice for other coxswains who could possibly find themselves in similar situations, or whether they thought anything could be done to improve their type of boat . . .

Walsh: I think if you can keep the men continued on page 93.