Welcome! Between the crew of Cromer lifeboat station and our station Ijmuiden a friendship has flourished for some years. This culminated in a visit of our lifeboat Johanna Louisa to Cromer from May 8 until May 11.

The reception our crew, our inspector and their wives were given was so warm and so overwhelming that they are still speechless.

It was a wonderful occasion and it is in this respect that I thank you and the RNL1 for your fine hospitality and friendship.—CH. VAN DER ZWEEP, Director, Royal North and South Holland Lifeboat Service, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

This letter was received by Rear Admiral W. J. Graham, Director oj the RNL1.

Princess Victoria In an article about Patrick Howarth published in the spring issue of THE LIFEBOAT it is stated that the car ferry Princess Victoria went down in St George's Channel in February, 1953.

You are about 100 miles out. Princess Victoria went down in North Channel somewhere from Corsewall Point to Larne, Co. Antrim. Portpatrick lifeboat was called out but as the positions given for Princess Victoria were wrong the lifeboat could not find her.

After some time Donaghadee lifeboat was called out and. off the entrance to Belfast Lough, found a ship's lifeboat with 29 people in it, then a raft and a second ship's lifeboat each with a survivor on board.—B. H. BULLICK, 4 College Green, Belfast 7.

The oldest surviving lifeboat Readers of THE LIFEBOAT might be interested in the photograph, below, of the lifeboat Zetland, and the fact that on October 29 of this year it will be one hundred years since she made her last rescue.

To summarise her career briefly, Zetland was built by Henry Greathead in 1800 and was purchased by the people of Redcar in 1802. From 1840 she was maintained by the Tees Bay Lifeboat Society until they asked to be taken over by the RNLI in 1858.

On February 17, 1864, Zetland was damaged while rescuing the crew of seven from the brig Brothers. The RNLI condemned her to be broken up, but the local townsfolk were so outraged that they mobbed the workmen and prevented the work from being done. A subscription was raised and Zetland was sent away for repairs and given an honourable retirement. During her 62 years of service she had rescued over 500 people with the loss of only one of her crew.

The RNLI sent one of their selfrighters as a replacement, but she was not liked by the fishermen and pilots, many of whom refused to man her. A partial solution came in 1877 when a charitable order known as the United Free Gardeners had a boat built on similar lines to Zetland. Thus the boatmen had two types of lifeboat from which to chose.

On October 28, 1880, a terrific storm blew from the east north east. At first light a schooner was sighted being drived toward the shore. She was Luna, the first of two vessels of that name to be wrecked at Redcar that day.

Her crew of four were rescued by the Free Gardeners lifeboat, but unfortunately the lifeboat carriage got embedded in the sand and was not recovered until the next day.

As the day wore on, further vessels needed help. The brig Emmanuel Boiitcher stranded to the east of Redcar and her crew were saved by the RNLIlifeboat, Burton-on-Trent, despite a hole that was knocked in the lifeboat's hull as she was being launched. The crew of the ss Tees were saved by rocket apparatus, while the crew of the German barque Minna were helped ashore as the tide ebbed.

Around 2300 that night the brig Luna was driven through Redcar Pier and made a breach some 60 yards long. The deck was littered with wreckage and an iron column fell through a skylight and broke the captain's leg. The unfortunate vessel had already lost her masts and anchors while 40 miles out at sea and after being washed through the pier she was little more than a helpless hulk.

Both lifeboats were out of action and it was discovered that the rocket brigade had used all their rockets earlier in the day. The brig was being heavily pounded by the breakers and looked as though she would break up at any moment. There was little alternative but to use Zetland and at 0400 the following morning she was successfully launched and brought ashore the crew of seven from Luna.

Fortunately Zetland has been carefully preserved and is kept in what was the Free Gardeners lifeboat house, now a council museum. A permanent display of models, photographs, fishing and lifeboat equipment trace Redcar's strong connection with the sea. There are also a number of changing exhibitions, all related to the sea or the seaside.—D. PHILLIPSON, 43 Stanley Grove, Redcar, Cleveland.

Coaster on the rocks May we through your magazine, to which we gratefully subscribe, give our thanks to the helicopter crews from Culdrose and Salcombe lifeboat crew who saved my husband Peter Shaw, mate. Captain Richard Gillis and Mr Bell, crew member, from Heye-P on December 19, 1979, when she foundered on the rocks in a terrible storm at Prawle Point.

We cannot praise too highly these dedicated men. Thank you all! Our thanks also to the doctors and staff at the hospital and whoever the very kind lady was who phoned me at 2 o'clock in the morning to put my mind at rest that my husband was safe. He is now back at sea.—IRENE M. SHAW, White Lodge Guest House, Dagmar Street, Shaldon, Devon.

The service to Heye-P is reported on page 44.—EDITOR.

Brancaster Reading of the re-opening last year of Hunstanton lifeboat station, on the east of the Wash, reminded me of the days when, as a child, 1 used to visit Brancaster, about seven miles further east along the Norfolk coast, where there was a lifeboat station from 1874 to 1935.My grandfather, the Reverend E. K.

Kerslake, was Rector of Burnham Deepdale, the next small village to the east, and as our mother had died young we children often spent our school holidays with our grandparents at Deepdale Rectory. Grandfather had helped to form the station branch in 1874 and, together with Mr E. J. Dewing was joint honorary secretary for ten years, after which he continued as secretary alone for another 21 years.

Grandfather often went out on practice launches in the lifeboat. I can well remember that the special duty of the grandchildren was to catch the horses from a field on a neighbouring farm and help to harness them to the lifeboat carriage in the brick-built lifeboat house.

The horses, recorded as being 'splendid animals', were lent, free, by local farmers.

My grandfather was honorary secretary until a few years of his death in 1910. The lifeboat house has now been demolished, and the next lifeboat station along the coast is Wells-next-the- Sea.

I am a retired Royal Naval officer who will not see his 84th birthday again, but continue my interest in the lifeboat service.—CAPTAIN RN (RTD), Weybridge, Surrey.

Hobblers In the old days of sail, the coasting ketches and schooners which used the port of Bude rarely entered the harbour without help from the 'hobblers' who met vessels outside the breakwater in their open rowing boat and acted as pilots.

The word 'hobbler' appears to be almost, if not quite, unique to Bude and obviously derives from 'hoveler'. The latter has a variety of meanings but seems to have been generally used for boatmen working along the coast or acting as unlicensed pilots. In Cassel's Encyclopaedic Dictionary (14 volumes, 1884), however, the definition is quitespecific: 'one who assists in saving life and property from a wreck'. Was this the original function of our 'hobblers'? Were the hovelers in other small ports the unofficial (or even official) lifeboatmen before the days of true lifeboats? Information on this subject would be much appreciated.—R. M.

BERE, West Cottage, Bude Haven, Bude, Cornwall.

Valuable information . . .

The following is an extract from a letter received at RNL1 Poole HQfrom a solicitor: The writer particularly remembers, when taking instructions on the preparation of the Will, Mr mentioning that while the sheer volume of charities appealing for legacies had to some extent built up a defence mechanism because he felt that a considerable amount of the monies are absorbed in administering the charity which is seeking the funds, he was impressed, as an engineer, with some of the technical details which had been supplied by you in one of your information leaflets, of the way in which your lifeboats work and he mentioned at the time that had such information come to his hand at an earlier stage, he would probably have made a regular Deed of Covenant.

We mention this because those administering charities rarely have an opportunity of knowing exactly what appeals to potential benefactors.

The exhibition which you put on at the Earls Court Boat Show in January followed very much this line of thought and you would appear to be in the happy position of administering a charity in which nobody has anything but good to say..