When snow and ice accompany storm force winds endurance of a high order is asked of lifeboat crews; an active endurance which will enable them to maintain efficiency and bring a service to a successful conclusion even after many hours at sea in the worst of weather. It was like that for some of the last winter's services . . .THE WINTER of 1978 and 1979, like the winter the year before, will be remembered for the ferocity of its weather and for the long services which were carried out by lifeboatmen in the teeth of storm force winds, high seas, blinding snow and bitter, bitter cold. For such services the gold, silver and bronze medals for gallantry were awarded to Superintendent Coxswain Brian Bevan of Humber, the silver medal to Coxswain David Cox of Wells, a third bar to his bronze medal to Coxswain John Petit of St Peter Port and the bronze medal to Coxswain Fred Walkington of Bridlington. While lifeboat people were in London for the annual presentation of awards last May, the opportunity was taken to hold informal discussions between these four coxswains and the divisional inspectors of lifeboats for their areas, Lt Alan Tate (North East), Tom Nutman (East) and Lt Cdr Roy Portchmouth (South West), on the problems of maintaining crew efficiency on prolonged services in such extreme conditions.

Conversations revolved in particular round one night in January and one day in February: the night of January 4 and 5 when the St Peter Port lifeboat was searching for 12 hours through a bitterly cold night for survivors from the Greek freighter Cantonad in eastnorth- easterly winds rising to hurricane force 12 and high breaking seas and with visibility further reduced by snow storms; and February 15, a day of north-easterly winds rising to violent storms, force 11, high breaking seas, almost continuous snow and temperatures well below zero, when Bridlington, Wells and Humber lifeboats were all out on service for many hours, Bridlington to the German ship Sunnanhav,Wells and Humber to a Romanian cargo ship Savinesti.

St Peter Port and Humber lifeboats are both fast afloat Aruns, the former, Sir William Arnold, 52ft overall, the latter, City of Bradford IV, 54ft LOA. Bridlington lifeboat, William Henry and Mary King, and Wells lifeboat, Ernest Tom Neathercoat, are both open 37ft Oakleys. A photograph of an Arun (Lerwick) appears on page 229, and of an Oakley (Wells) on page 239.

These services were reported in full in the summer 1979 issue of THE LIFEBOAT (as were also the services for which Coxswain Bevan was awarded the gold and silver medals) and brief summaries are given below*.

But what was it like to be there . . . in the Channel on that January night . . .

Coxswain John Petit, St Peter Port: It was just after 9 o'clock in the evening when we started off into a northeasterly whole gale. With wind against tide the seas were very steep. I had to slow up as we left the shelter of Herm.

All of a sudden a wave came aboardand carried away our liferaft. We had to turn around so that some of the crew could go on deck to secure it. As the after door was opened a big one came over the stern and almost filled up the cabin. That was a fine start. Reports were coming in that the ship Cantonad was developing a bigger list all the time; we knew we couldn't waste time, so off we went at full speed. The wind was on the beam as we steamed round the top of the island. We were nearly at the position given, which was 30 miles from Guernsey, and I wanted to give a message to the assistant mechanic who was on the radio. I had to turn round and look aft and just at that moment a big one came and threw us down, threw me out of the seat on to the deck. Two of the other chaps fell on Chick Robilliard and he fractured a couple of ribs.

Anyway, after a few minutes we were under way again. The helicopters from Culdrose beat us to the position by about 15 minutes and they started to drop flares. They managed to winch up one survivor who was in a liferaft but the rest were in the sea; they sent a winchman down, but he got half drowned, I think, in the breaking waves. By this time the ship had capsized.

I went to the upper conning position with a lookout. It takes your breath away when you go on deck, the cold.

You couldn't feel your hands after being up there five or ten minutes.

When you get on top of a sea everything's flying—wind, snow, spume —then you go down into a trough and it is quite quiet. It's uncanny.

The helicopters dropped flares and they helped a lot. We saw the two bodies we picked up in the light of the flares. They seemed to throw an orange light down into the sea and you could see the bodies silhouetted in the water.

We managed to pick up those two but only after a great deal of difficulty. It wasn't easy, in those seas, trying to manoeuvre to keep alongside. The crew . . . one moment they were up forward, then they had to come aft, then they were halfway along the deck.

They had to keep moving the whole time in order to keep the casualties in sight. It would have been a very difficult job in our old Barnett and I doubt if we would have seen anyone in thewater—certainly we would not have had a chance to manoeuvre alongside.

. . . and on that February day . . .

Superintendent Coxswain Brian Bevan: The snow and the frost that morning were the killers. It was freezing hard.

At 10 o'clock in the morning, at the Coastguard station, eight degrees of frost was recorded. That was at midmorning.

Four hours prior to that it was 14 to 16 degrees of frost. The handrails on the boarding boat were iced inches thick all along. When we got started our problem was navigation, because of the banks down in David's area. The Decca was put out of action by the snow. We thought the radar was, too, at first. Then we found it was iced up.

We chipped that off and the radar was all right. So we more or less went down on the radar, just getting a fix on the Decca when the snow eased enough to get a signal through. Going to the job . . . I don't think you will ever see conditions worse. I have worked down there quite a bit, further south of that as well, fishing, and been caught out, but I don't think I have ever seen such long broken seas for as long. As one petered out the next one was coming at you.

You were even bringing the Arun round to meet them head to sea because you could see them coming at you like a house side. You were always frightened of the knock down. You were on course, then coming round to meet a sea, then back on your course, even with the Arun. I have spoken to older fishermen and older hands on the east coast and I don't think you will ever see any worse anywhere than it was that day. There were ships and fishing boats that had rode it out still coming to the river three days after with their masts, rigging and even their bows, where you would have thought it would have been washed off, thick with ice and snow. More like pictures that you see of the deep sea trawlers in Iceland —not the sort of thing we are accustomed to in the North Sea.

The Humber crew were in an Arun with an enclosed wheelhouse, but Wells and Bridlington crews were in Oakley lifeboats, the steering position open except for a windscreen and canopy.

Coxswain David Cox: It was the worsttrip I've ever had. If my chaps weren't all fishermen they might not have survived as well as they did. They were my regular crew, all fishermen. Even then, most of them were complaining about the weather—the intense cold and the wet—by the time we got home.

When I first left Wells Harbour I gave her full speed. That wasn't too bad on the harbour bar. But after we had gone off about ten minutes, then we started to meet it. We took a nasty one, so I eased her back; it seemed a bit more comfortable, but she was still taking them green. Every time she took one it came right aft, hit the bulkhead aft and slapped right into the cockpit—even the mechanics got drenched.

Coxswain Fred Walkington, Bridlington: It was like that for us when the radar went on the blink. That's just how ours happened. A wave just took on and went straight under the canopy.

The radar went dead. That was the last we saw of that.

Cox: I will say this for the Oakley: although she was filling all the time, the water was clearing very quickly. She was filling and emptying, as quick as that.

The first object we saw that morning was Savinesti. From the time we left home we saw no navigation buoys, nothing. The North Sea ferry gave us a position for the South East Docking, but we never saw it.

When we started back for home, at about 1500, I knew we had the worst to come. I know what our place is like.

There are no lights. You couldn't seeany landmarks at all. And I knew darkness was coming on. I was not very happy running in those seas. I wasn't sure where I would end up but I knew it would be west of Wells Harbour somewhere. First we were going south-south-west but, even with the drogue out, she was taking nasty seas on her quarter, so I altered course to south west and she was running fair and square, going with the seas. We had to come over the top of Race Bank.

I have never seen the sea so piled up in my life, running and breaking on the bank. I eased her up a bit and she took it all right. By the time we nearly got in that day it was after dark, round about 6 or 7 o'clock. That was my most critical time, because we had been out about nine hours. We were just about all in, I would say. Yet we still had the worst conditions to contend with. Yousee, when darkness came on we weren't quite sure, at times, whether we were running on to the main shore or whether we were still at sea. Many a time the crew said, ' must be the shore,' and I said, 'No, I don't think so.

It's somewhere deeper, somewhere about the five fathom mark.' We were on the banks. The first thing we spotted was just a glimmer of light, and when we spotted it we were nearly in Brancaster Harbour—we were nearly on the shore.

Walkington: This is where we were at an advantage, if you can say that, coming home. We went for the high cliffs because you stood a better chance of seeing the cliffs than you would have done the low land to the south. The seas were breaking full on Smithic Sands and it was high water. You would have had a job to come across the sands alone, but if you got across them you would never have seen the shore before you were on top of it. This is why I went for the higher land.

What about visibility and keeping a lookout in that weather? Petit: While the helicopters were away refuelling we were searching downwind for five hours; the tide was ebbing down Channel and the wind was northeasterly behind us. I was up on the flying bridge, rotating the lookout, but you couldn't see much. It was pitch black.

Cox: For us, the visibility was just about nil. Snow storms—blizzards if you like—are worse than fog in an open boat when you are heading into it all the while.

Bevan: It was coming so hard, with that wind strength, you couldn't even look into it, could you? Cox: The windscreen wiper we have got on the Oakley was on all the time but it was snowing so hard it wasn't giving the wiper a chance even to get half way.

Walkington: We could have done with a squeegee . . .

Bevan: Our windows were steaming up inside as well. That was a full time job for a man, wiping the steam off the windows so that you could see.

All four coxswains had stayed on the wheel throughout the service, thus not only being in full control but also, with the feel of their boats in their own hands, maintaining that tenuous thread of mental dead reckoning vital in weather so wild that formal navigation was virtually impossible.

Petit: I steered all the time. The others do steer on occasions, but on a service of that sort I like to know where we are going and I can make sure that I do steer that course.

Cox: Yes, I was on the wheel throughout, too. My second coxswain . . . I think he was only there about half an hour. I was quite happy, mind you, going off, because I knew within a little where the ship was. Visibility was just about nil and the radar had gone, so I was on a compass course. I wanted to take her because in my mind I knew where I was going. If we had switched around and they had all had a spell on the wheel, my course could have been all over the place. They can all take the wheel, I know, but on that particular day I thought, I am going to take the course I want to go for the time I have in mind.

We ran off for about an hour and 50 minutes and then I eased down. We had a bit of a conflab and they all thought that we were east of where the ship should be and that we shouldn't go any further off. I said, 'All right. Get the drogue ready.' As the sea was that day I wasn't going to just turn around.

She might have caught one. Then, as I was turning, I spotted the ship. It was only because I went off north east from Wells Harbour that morning that I found her. They said Savinesti was more or less on our fishing ground, which was a great help—you know, it was as though we were going fishing because we kept the same sort of course. And as luck would have it we spotted the ship.

Walkington: On exercise I leave it to the crew and that's it; it's good that they should have the experience. But on a job I prefer to keep on the wheel the whole time.

Bevan: On a day like that it is the coxswain's job to be at the wheel . . .

Cox: I would second that . . .

Bevan: . . . certainly going out to the casualty. And even if you were not steering the boat yourself, you would still be looking over the back of the other chap's shoulder all the time.

How much of a strain was it, physically? Cox: You are standing in one position for a long time on those sort of days.

You don't feel the effect until you get home; then you are completely off balance.

Walkington: I was fortunate because I have one of those pedestal seats; you don't actually sit on it, you lean against it, but the weight it took off my feet that day was a great help.

Cox: The only thing about a seat—they are good, I agree—but I like plenty of freedom round that wheel. We had eight aboard that day and all my crew were huddled up aft. There's two or three below; there's two on the port side, two on the starboard side.

Walkington: No, you do have plenty of room. It's surprising. Everybody was aft from the moment we left the beach, because we all clipped on and we were all the aft side of the canopy.

Cox: Well, that would break it up a bit, because I was on my feet for 11 hours.

You know, you are all tensed up under it, wet and cold.

Wet and cold . . . cold is an insidious enemy and there is less chance of keeping warm if you are wet . . .

Cox: It was impossible to keep dry that day. I had two jerseys on, I had my green zipper jacket and then I had the lifeboat trousers and jacket. And the whole crew was the same. They all had their own personal sea gear on as well as the RNLI gear. When we got home we were all soaked to the skin. In our type of boat, in that sort of weather, I don't think anything would keep the water out.

Bevan: Do you think you would have been in the dry with yellow oilskin tops and trousers? Fishing gear? We have the Functional gear and we have also got the Vinco oilskin gear, which I think is more effective in wet weather.

Walkington: On this service everybody had Vinco trousers on. There were only two that wore the Functional jackets.

They were the two mechanics, underneath. There were only two people that got wet in our boat; one was the lad who had his head in the water when we got the knock down and one was the second coxswain who got a sea going up his oilskin smock and in the low-slung trousers. Everybody else was dry. Usually the only place the oilskin smock will let you down is round the neck, and you can put a good muffler or scarf round there.

Cox: Mind you, the jackets are warm, the Functional jackets we've got now.

But I like the old oilskin frock and sou'wester.

What about the dry suits used by some Atlantic 21 inshore lifeboat, crews, if they could be modified so that they could be worn for long periods? Suits with rubber neck and wrist seals to keep the water out completely? Would that help in bad weather? Cox: Yes, I think so. Some of the lads have spoken about these dry suits . . .

Petit: I think it would be a great thing myself. In very cold weather they are absolutely marvellous. The only thing that bothers me, would there be chafing at neck and wrists on a long service? All agreed that heat loss through the head, which is appreciable, must be avoided, flat caps or sou'westers being preferred . . .

Cox: I always carry my own sou'wester aboard. I have always used one. When you are looking to the weather in an open boat you can't beat an old sou'wester—she'll dodge all the water.

What about bump caps? The very light weight padded ones with a little peak, now being issued, which give protection against head injury as well as warmth? Cox: We haven't received ours yet, but quite honestly I don't think they would be a lot of good in our type of boat. Not for the chaps on deck. Maybe for the two mechanics . . .

Bevan: You haven't got yours yet, David. When you do get them you will probably look at one, try it on and chuck it out of the boathouse. But after you have had one on for two or three hours, if you take it off, you feel the difference straight away. It's surprising how warm they are.

What about hands? Petit: We had gloves on but you couldn't feel your hands after about five or ten minutes on the flying bridge.

I have tried wet suit gloves but foundthem a bit too stiff. A supple pair would be all right.

Cox: I carry oiled mittens—full length ones that enclose your fingers. All that day I was wringing them out and putting them on again, and my hands were keeping fairly warm. You had to keep wringing the water out because otherwise they get sloppy and heavy and you can't always feel the wheel move off centre.

What about the motion of the boats in those high seas? Bevan: We haven't got all the luxuries in a fast afloat boat because with twice the speed you have got twice the knocking about and bouncing about, which is certainly more sharp and severe than in a conventional boat.

That day, on the way to Savinesti, it was the slowest we have ever done: roughly 10 knots over a 37, 38 mile run.

Coxswain John Petit was in his father's crew for the service to Johan Collett on February 5, 1963, the service for which Coxswain Hubert Petit was awarded the gold medal and John himself his first bronze medal. On that service, the 52ft Burnett Euphrosyne Kendal was at sea for about 15 hours in south-easterly hurricane force winds and once again it was snowing and very cold. So here was a direct comparison between a conventional and a fast afloat lifeboat in extreme conditions. Were the effect on the crew equal? Petit: It's a long time ago . . . but I would say the surface temperatures in both services were about the same. In the Barnett you were more in the open and we had the spray to contend with; you felt the cold a lot more. When you were up top it was bitterly cold; the most you could stand was about 15 minutes before you started to feel it quite badly. In the Arun you are under shelter and you have got heaters. In a Barnett, except for the mechanics, you have to stand to keep a look out, whereas in the Arun, of course, you are seated until you go on deck. From those points of view, when you do go on deck you are more fit in an Arun.

On the other hand, of course, in a fast boat you are thrown around quite a lot more than you are in a Barnett and I think that you are worn down in that way. It's the speed. I suppose they balance each other out.

But it is just in head seas and a few points either side where, in the fast boat, you are slamming about and really hitting them hard. Anything abaft the beam and there is no comparison: the Arun is a little ship, whereas in the Barnett you are rolling around. It's a totally different ride altogether. If you reduce speed in an Arun to 9 knots in a head sea, then you are getting down to a similar sort of motion as the Barnett.

There's not much difference. In fact, in above force 9 winds you can't bash through head seas in the Arun at more than about 10 knots.

Did the Arun crews use their seat belts? Petit: We didn't use seat belts because we were up and down like yo-yos to the top steering position and it is an arduous job strapping yourself in all the time. I think a simple lap strap would be quite enough to keep you in the seat—an aircraft type of strap with a simple release for getting in and out.

Bevan: I was the only one of our crew who wore a seat belt—just the waistband one. And it was rugged all right.

On one occasion, going round the lightship, we thought we had left the engines in 25 fathoms. I am almost certain it would be better with seat belts on, but you feel a bit tied in.

How did the Oakley coxswains feel about their boats? Walkington: If it was at all possible, this service gave me greater confidence in the boat herself, the Oakley. We had always been used to a conventional boat, a Liverpool. When we came into the Oakley we found her a lot more cockley. But the services we have done in her, particularly in the last year, have given me a lot of confidence in her.

Cox: We used to have a Liverpool, but I can assure you, everyone up at Wells puts a lot of faith in the boat we have got now.

Bevan: Do you think you would have been better off if you had had a wheelhouse, like a Rother? Cox: I would like to have a Rother, if that is what you are getting at! I like the boat I have got now very much and I think the water ballast is superb. The Oakleys are good boats but you are still exposed. I am told the Rothers are move lively, but you would have a wheelhouse.

So back to endurance. What are the signs, when cold and fatigue start to encroach? Cox: It is the first time I have known my crew to be very quiet. I think the extreme cold was getting everyone that day. It was rough, we know, but it is the intense cold that gets you. You are standing there, taking everything that comes.

Bevan: That is a sure sign that the weather is getting really bad: the quietness.

Everybody can be talking and chatting away, probably for the first 20 minutes, half an hour, and then conversations gradually dwindle away.

Cox: It's the time it takes to do a job, too. When we were getting the drogue ready . . . normally it would take two or three minutes, but that day it took about quarter of an hour.

How important to morale and the maintenance of efficiency is the radio link with the shore? Petit: The more the crew is kept informed the better. When there are messages coming in all the time and you are kept alive to the situation with frequent reports it keeps everybody interested. It keeps the chap on the Decca Navigator fully employed; it keeps the radar man fully employed; everyone. It is good. It keeps everybody keyed up and it's a great way of helping. When you get long periods of silence it can be deadly.

Cox: When the crew hear things come on the radio . . . well, it is more chatty, I'll put it like that. When we were out there we couldn't hear Wells Coastguard.

We could only work through Yarmouth. That was another thing which gave me an indication that we were getting nearer the coast because we started hearing Wells Coastguard coming through. All my chaps started to cheer up a bit then because . . . well, I can honestly say it was the worst we have ever been at Bevan: I think you had had problems with communications all day, because we had nearly reached you before we got in contact, on the VHP anyway.

Cox: I heard you talk round about quarter or twenty past three.

Bevan: Yes, whereas in normal conditions we would have been able to hear you when we left the river. We must have been within ten miles before we even got in contact with you, probably less.

What about food and drink in weather like that? Petit: If you can grab something to eat, all well and good; but if you can't it is not essential. On a service half the crew don't feel like eating. They'll probably drink, if you can get it ready and a hot drink helps a lot. But very often you can't get it. Conditions are too bad. We have got a water heater with a tap on the bottom, but a drink would be spilled before it could be got half-way up the ladder.

Cox: We never used any of our stores at all that day. To make a drink was an impossibility. Mind you, the cigarettes were used and we ran out of the boiled sweets we had on board. We find that if you are continuously taking salt water in the mouth a boiled sweet is a great help. But nobody seemed to want to eat anything at all. Now, if you could still get those tins of self-heating soups thatused to be made, I think we could have brewed those up, running home.

Walkington: That was one of the surprising things, looking back on it: no one in my boat even asked, or thought about, food or drink. It wasn't until later that someone said, 'We never used that heater.' Normally we use it quite a lot, on escort jobs or when we are out for two or three hours. But that day it was not mentioned at all.

Be van: You couldn't keep the water in the boiler that day; even we couldn't.

We never got a drink. Nobody wanted the job of filling it up ...

Cox: We did have tins of cold drinks but we didn't even touch them.

Walkington: We were the same. We had a dozen tins of Coke but we never touched them. I think the availability of cigarettes was a good thing, for the men that smoked. They were used.

Does seasickness detract from the ability to do the job? Petit: Most of our crew are not usually seasick. Just on a very bad service under abnormal conditions they may become a bit sick. But once they have brought it up they are fine again. They get on with their job. It hasn't put them out of business.

Bevan: We have a couple of lads who suffer from seasickness from time to time, but they can still do the job. It's one of those things. If, like David, you have got a crew of people who are at sea all week, then seasickness never bothers them. But any crew that might be weeks ashore at a time and then get chucked in on days like that, they'll suffer from seasickness because they are not at sea long enough or regularly enough really to get over it. The Arun is pretty good for seasickness, for a closed in boat. When you are steaming, well, nobody could live on deck, anyway.

It's good for sorting the men out, when they get locked inside, with the door shut! Cox: No direct air, that's the trouble.

When you are in the open it is all right.Walkington: I am the only fisherman in my boat—and that's part time—but normally we have no problem.

Does age affect a man's ability to endure? Walkington: I think so. The average age of our crew on that launch was just over 36.

Cox: A couple of young lads jumped aboard that morning, just kids. I just said, 'Out!' because I knew the sort of day it was going to be. But I've got a young chap in my regular crew, he's 25 or 26. He was the fittest one of all when we got home. He just went straight off the quay into the pub and had two or three rums! I'm afraid all I wanted to do was get home for a hot bath. So age does come into it.

Petit: I would say the middle aged man has the advantage when it comes to endurance. He's got a lifetime's experience of endurance by that time.

A lot of it is psychological—an attitude of mind. I think an ideal age would be about 45—after that you probably go down hill a bit.

Bevan: After services like that, can you go straight home as normal and sit down to a dinner put in front of you? Cox: No.

Bevan: We can't. We find after jobs like that that you seem to be 12 or 18 hours before you are back to normal. You can probably have a drink of tea or coffee.

Everybody says you want a hot meal as soon as you get back, but the blokes just can't seem to sit down and face that meal.

Walkington: I think you are a good 24 hours before your body really gets back to normal.

Bevan: You seem to come back off a job absolutely dog tired. All you want to do is drop into your bed, and within two minutes of your being in bed you can't sleep. Everything is sort of wound up inside you.

Cox: When I got home that night I just stripped off and got straight into a bath, and even then it took a long time to thaw out. When I got out of the bath, I stood there and my balance had gone.

They all said the same thing the next morning. You are so tensed up through cold and concentration, you don't really sleep when you get to bed. I couldn't relax at all until next day.

Was it worse for the coxswain than for his crew? Cox: I can answer that, because when I was a crew member I never got any after effect at all. I was younger, mind you. When I was about 20 or 30 it never used to worry me. I have been in Wellslifeboat as crew on rough trips. I used to come home quite fresh. I think responsibility has something to do with it as well as age.

What did the younger coxswain's think? Bevan: For my crew I think probably the New Year's Eve job, the service to Diana Vt, was the worst in terms of endurance. We had the engine job.

After we had done about 25 or 30 miles we had to come back to Grimsby on one engine with both mechanics down in the engine room trying to strip down the broken pipe on the gearbox. Then, back at sea again, they fitted the pipe and we thought all our troubles were over. We were back on two engines and had set course at full speed. Then we had the no lights job. We were running the boat with two torches. We finished at breakfast time on New Year's Eve. I think for 24 hours or so I was so mentally and physically wound up that I was miles away—even during the New Year celebrations. I am in a world of my own for 24 hours after a job like that.

Walkington: That is the thing, when you come back: the responsibility.

With this February job there was no beach to re-carriage, so we went into the harbour. I got the crew to go home and have a warm drink and change into warm clothing. I think everybody came back slightly refreshed before we went and re-carriaged. It was a difficult recarriaging job, but we couldn't have left her in harbour because, at low water, she would have been 'off service'.

She had to go back on station because the weather was so bad that that boat might have had to go again.

And that's it, whatever the weather.

Back on station . . . and ready for service.*Service to Cantonad: On the night of January 4 and 5, 1979, St Peter Port's 52ft Arun lifeboat Sir William Arnold took part in a search for survivors from the Greek freighter Cantonad which sank in the English Channel in an east-north-easterly hurricane and terrific seas. Visibility was reduced by snow. On her way to the search area, more than 30 miles from station, one huge wave rolled the lifeboat over 45 degrees, throwing the coxswain out of his seat and knocking him momentarily unconscious.

Another crew member was injured, cracking two ribs. Nevertheless, the lifeboat was on her way again within minutes to search throughout that wild and pitch-black night. One survivor was picked up from a liferaft by a naval helicopter; two bodies were recovered from the water by the lifeboat, which was at sea for more than 12 hours. For this service a third bar to his bronze medal was awarded to Coxswain John Petit.

Services to Sunnanhav and Savinesti: on February 15, 1979, Bridlington's 37ft Oakley lifeboat William Henry and Mary King launched in a blizzard and a violent northeasterly storm to help the German freighter Sunnanhav, broken down and being driven towards Flamborough Head. The freighter regained power and the lifeboat was on her return passage when, with visibility down to 50 yards in the snow and the radar out of action, she had to turn hard to port to avoid rocks. She was struck by a huge wave and knocked over to starboard, the engine cutout operating. The 'capsize switches' were made and the engines fired first time. For this service the bronze medal was awarded to Coxswain Fred Walkington.

On that same morning Wells' 37ft Oakley lifeboat Ernest Tom Neathercoat launched to stand by the disabled Romanian cargo ship Savinesti which was in danger of running aground on Race Bank or Docking Shoal. In temperatures well below freezing and with huge seas washing right over her.

this open lifeboat stood by until Humber's 54ft Arun lifeboat City of Bradford IV had made the 37-mile passage from Spurn Point and could take over the service. Wells lifeboat had to make the first part of her return passage at half speed with the drogue streamed and snow blowing directly into the after cockpit; then, turning into the breaking seas, it took her two hours to make good the last seven miles; she had been at sea for over 11 hours. Humber lifeboat, together with the North Sea Ferry Norwave, eventually escorted Savinesti to the safety of the River Humber after more than 15 hours at sea. For this service the silver medal was awarded to Coxswain David Cox of Wells and the bronze medal to Superintendent Coxswain Brian Bevan of Humber.tService to Diana V: On the night of December 30 and 31, 1978, Humber's 54ft Arun City of Bradford IV rescued six of the crew of the Dutch coaster Diana V, first reported in distress 74 miles east by south of Spurn Head in a strong easterly gale; her cargo of maize had shifted in the very heavy seas. After the lifeboat's mechanics had repaired under way an oil pipe which had fractured, the Arun maintained full speed to the casualty despite the fact that she was receiving a terrific pounding, during which her lights failed. By the time she reached the casualty the wind had risen to storm force and, with the temperature -4°c, the sea water was freezing to deck and rails. The lifeboat made three runs in, being thrown against the heavily listing coaster by the breaking seas, before a 12-year-old girl, a woman and four men were all successfully taken off. Together with HMS Lindisfarne, the lifeboat then escorted the disabled Diana V into the River Humber. When she returned to her moorings she had been at sea for more than 13 hours. For this service the silver medal was awarded to Superintendent Coxswain Brian Bevan..