Help for Jolie Brise THE GAFF CUTTER Jolie Brine, on her way back from Oslo to Harwich on the second leg of the 1978 Tall Ships Race, made to put in to Lowestoft for repairs after two days of gales during which, due to rigging failure, she had lost her topmast. At 0930 on Wednesday August 30 Lowestoft Coastguard informed the honorary secretary of the lifeboat station that the yacht was at anchor about half a mile east of Lowestoft Ness Point, the most easterly point in the British Isles, and appeared to be in difficulty. Her engine had failed and MFV Dolly Bird was standing by.

Visibility was good, a moderate to fresh breeze, force 4 to 5, was blowing from the north and there was a moderate sea when, at 0945 Lowestoft's 47ft Watson lifeboat, Frederick Edward Crick, slipped her moorings and set out at full speed. She arrived alongside Jolie Brise and took her in tow back to Lowestoft where her crew of 14 were landed.

The lifeboat returned to her moorings at 1030. It had been Thomas Knott's last service as coxswain.Jolie Brise, one of this century's most famous, almost legendary, yachts, was the winner of the first Fastnet Race, in 1925, a race she was to win again in both 1929 and 1930. In the Tall Ships Race from Yarmouth to Oslo earlier in August, 1978, sailed by three school masters with a young crew, she had taken second place in her class..