Fleet Chief Petty Officer Charlie Haydon at HMS Raleigh, Plymouth, has pushed back the frontiers of sponsored fund raising yet one stage further. This is a sponsored whaler smash. Two teams of new recruits to the Navy, armed with sledge hammers and mauls, one day last July set about smashing two condemned 27ft three-in-one whalers into pieces small enough to pass through a hole the size of a lavatory seat.

Sponsorship was paid for the number of pieces and one team produced 1,500 fragments. The result after l'/2 smashing hours was a cheque for £376.20 for the RNLI.

photograph by courtesy of HMS Drake, Plymouth.