RNLI LIFEBOATS spent 186.6 hours at sea in rescues or attempted rescues of yachtsmen taking part in the Fastnet Race in August. They saved the lives of 60 people, landed three others, saved eight boats and in different ways helped 12 other boats. The Falmouth lifeboat was away from her station during these operations for over 38 hours.

These bare statistics tell only a small part of the story of a major and highly successful combined operation in search and rescue. Helicopters from the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, supported by RAF Nimrods and Irish and French aircraft, all played important parts, the total number of lives rescued by helicopter being 74. A number of other surface craft, including vessels of the Royal Navy, were also involved, and the essential task ofco-ordination was carried out in a most able manner by Ireland's Marine Coordination Centre at Shannon and HM Coastguard at Lands End. Fuller details of the lifeboat involvement in the Fastnet Race appear on page 222.

Radio appeal Coxswain Derek Scott of the Mumbles made an appeal on behalf of the RNLI on BBC radio on Sunday, August 12. The Fastnet Race followed immediately on his appeal, and many of those who responded wrote in moving terms of the way in which the reports from the Fastnet Race served as a reminder of the continuous work of those who man the lifeboats. One contributor wrote: ' Your splendid radio appeal and the simply wonderful heroism shown by the lifeboat crews in the Fastnet disaster call for an extra sign of appreciation of their wonderful work.' Another commented: 'My son was on the Fastnet Race and mercifully returned safely after a terrible ordeal. My admiration for the lifeboat crews who set out in such weather is enormous.' The total response to the appeal amounted to more than £11.500.

Twenty-six years ago This is the last number of THE LIFEBOAT for which I shall have any editorial responsibility. Just as this number contains an account of the flawless manner in which lifeboat crews responded to such an emergency as the 1979 Fastnet Race, so the first number which I edited described earlier emergencies to which the lifeboat response was no less admirable.

I joined the service of the RNLI on February 1, 1953. A day earlier the motor ship Princess Victoria, owned by the British Transport Commission, sank after leaving Stranraer. She carried 127 passengers and a crew of 49.

The disaster was the greatest suffered by a British merchant vessel in peacetime for a quarter of a century. A number of lifeboats put out to the rescue, the Donaghadee boat saving 31 lives.

On the same weekend floods on the east coast caused greater devastation over a period of 48 hours than had been known in peacetime within living memory in England. Among the lifeboats on service was that at Southend, which was called out seven times in a period of little more than 48 hours and spent more than 26 hours at sea.

One of the most spectacular rescues was carried out by the Clacton lifeboat, which took five men, a woman, two children, two dogs and a cat from the roof of a bungalow.

The report in THE LIFEBOAT of the east coast floods called attention to a significant decision made by the Committee of Management. The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Rupert De la Bere, launched an appeal for a reJief fund, and the government of the day undertook to double the amount contributed to the fund. As this was taxpayers' money the RNLI decided not to apply for a grant, preferring to maintain its status as an organisation supported entirely by voluntary contributions.

The cost of repairing damage to RNLI property was estimated to be between £10,000 and £15,000.

A quarter century of change In the period of little more than a quarter of a century which has elapsed since February 1953 the changes in lifeboats and their equipment have been prodigious. In 1953 there were no lifeboats in the fleet with a speed of more than nine knots. All lifeboats were built of wood. They were open boats, and a debate was still taking place on whether it would be desirable to fit lifeboats with wheelhouses. Few of the boats were self-righters, and those which were were regarded with some suspicion by the majority of crews. There were no inshore lifeboats: no radar set had been invented which could be of much use in boats lying so low in the water as lifeboats; no echo sounders had yet been fitted. Crews still wore the traditional oilskins and kapok lifejackets.

One glance at an Arun or Atlantic lifeboat today can give an impression of the immensity of the changes which THE LIFEBOAT has chronicled in the last quarter of a century.

Continuity of service There have been many changes too in the appearance of THE LIFEBOAT itself. In 1953 and for some years afterwards the publication served mainly as the historical record of the work of the service. Gradually it developed into the magazine of quality which has been edited for some years now with such distinction by Joan Davies. Nevertheless in its contents a remarkable continuity can be found.

This is provided by the very nature of voluntary service. The summer 1953 number of THE LIFEBOAT, which was the first I edited, included a verbatim report of an interview broadcast by the BBC with two women launchers at Dungeness. They were Madge Tart, who began serving as a launcher at the age of eleven, and her sister-in-law, Ellen Tart. The autumn 1979 number of THE LIFEBOAT included an article by Ray Kipling on women's work in the lifeboat service, in which the part played by successors of Madge and Ellen Tart as launchers, Serena Fair, Doris Tart and Joan Bates, was described.

AGM 1980 Royal Festival Hall, London Thursday, May 22.