• No one could be better fitted to write Mayday! Mayday!: A History of the Guernsey Lifeboat Station than Jurat Guy Blampied, QBE, who, an RNAS seaplane pilot himself in the first world war and an RAF officer in the second, has been an active member of Guernsey branch for a good half century.

He was already a committee member in 1938 and, after a few years as vice-chairman, has served as chairman since 1959; he was awarded the gold badge in 1972 and honorary life governorship in 1982. On the operational side, Jurat Blampied has been a deputy launching authority since 1977, and he always comes down to the station when St Peter Port lifeboat goes out on service to await her return, help with her refuelling and make sure that there is a hot drink ready for her crew.

Guernsey's first pulling lifeboat arrived on the island in 1803, but the early chapters of Mayday! Mayday! (The Guernsey Press Co Ltd, Braye Road, Vale, Guernsey, Channel Islands, £4.95) highlight the difficulties and frustrations of trying to provide an effective lifeboat service with a pulling and sailing boat on an island with a coastline of about 25 miles and in the days when a gallop on horseback was the only means of communication; an island, moreover, like Guernsey set in rock-strewn seas with a rise and fall on big spring tides of over 30 feet and where the help of a tug was often essential.

It was not until a power driven lifeboat came to Guernsey in 1929, a 51ft Barnett, that the problems were really overcome; since 1972, of course, the station has had one of the RNLI's most successful fast afloat boats, a 52ft Arun. In the years since 1929 there has been a proud record of gallantry and service to seafarers in which all the lifeboatmen of Guernsey have shared.

A gold medal was awarded to Coxswain Hubert Petit for the service in 1963 to the motor ship Johan Collett, and another gold medal was awarded to Coxswain Michael Scales in 1981 for the service to the motor ship Bonita, while names like Point Law, the tanker, and Orion, the oil rig, are evocative of all that is best in lifeboat tradition.

Included in this interesting book are also chapters on several different aspects of lifesaving work and life in Guernsey. One chapter, for instance, is concerned with St John Ambulance which runs a marine ambulance and a cliff rescue service in addition to its land ambulance responsibilities and with which the lifeboat works in happy co-operation.

Here is a fine story well told and well illustrated with good and varied photographs; a welcome addition to the library of the sea.—J.D.

• When Malcolm Darch, maritime research historian and professional model shipwright, was commissioned to build a collection of models of Salcombe lifeboats by a local hotelier, his research into the history of the station began; so involved did he become with the historic and other dramatic events of the station that after his seven superb models were put on display in the foyer of the Marine Hotel he decided to use his research for a book, The Salcombe and Hope Cove Lifeboat History.

The result is a most attractive book relating the events of Salcombe lifeboat station from its beginning in 1869 to the present day and of the Hope Cove station which existed from 1878 to 1930.

Its 48 pages are abundantly illustrated with a fine collection of old and new photographs which the author has obtained from many sources.

The book is published by Salcombe and Hope Cove branch and all proceeds from its sale will be donated to the branch. Costing £2.95 plus 30p post and packing, The Salcombe and Hope Cove Lifeboat History may be obtained from Mr W. P. Budgett, station honorary secretary, Oldway Cottage, Batson, Salcombe, Devon TQ8 8NJ.—H.D.

• The Lizard-Cadgwith Lifeboat is an excellent 64-page booklet edited by G. W. Kennedy, a former honorary secretary of the station whose 'inside' accounts of certain rescues make particularly interesting reading.

After a tragic shipwreck in January 1859, a lifeboat was stationed at the Lizard in November that year and in 1867 another was stationed at Cadgwith.

Almost 100 years later, however, the two stations were amalgamated and The Lizard-Cadgwith station at Kilcobben was formally opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in July 1961 when he also named the new 52ft Barnett lifeboat The Duke of Cornwall (Civil Service No 33). There is a splendid colour photograph of this lifeboat on the cover while inside black and white prints illustrate the station's history.

In addition to the record of lifeboat services a number of other aspects of the work involved in lifesaving at sea are touched upon. For instance, an appreciative lady writes her account of being rescued by a relief lifeboat on temporary duty at The Lizard-Cadgwith while other chapters take as their subjects shore helpers, the helicopters of RNAS Culdrose and the ladies' guild.

All proceeds from the book are for RNLI funds; it can be obtained for 50p plus 30p post and packing from Mr G.

W. Kennedy, Kinsale, Cadgwith, Helston TR12 7JY.—H.D.

• Whenever a disaster occurs, it is always followed by painful reflection that ';/ only this had been done or that had happened, none of this would have taken place'. Often there is a tale of a lucky escape. Geoff Hutchinson's sad account of The Mary Stanford Disaster at Rye Harbour which took place on November 15, 1928 when the lifeboat capsized on the harbour bar and the entire crew of 17 men was lost, is no exception.

Because he had been working late the previous night, one young crew member was sleeping so soundly that neither the maroons which were fired in the early hours of the morning, nor his mother could wake him in time to get to the lifeboat Mary Stanford before she was launched on her mission to save the crew of the Latvian steamer Alice, which was drifting and taking in water in a violent storm off Dungeness.

Such was the weather that when, only five minutes after the launch, it was learned that Alice's crew had already been rescued by another steamer, the lifeboat's coxswain and crew did not notice the repeated recall flares (there was no lifeboat to shore radio in those days). The lifeboat continued to search for a casualty that did not exist for another 3V2 hours before her disastrous return across the bar. Had the message that the lifeboat was not needed been relayed faster between North Foreland radio and Rye, she would never even have launched.

Geoff Hutchinson's booklet underlines the resolve and bravery of the 17 men who died that morning and reminds the reader how such a disaster affects not only the community, but the nation as a whole. The profits from the book will go towards the present day Rye Harbour lifeboat station. It costs £1 plus 25p postage and packing and can be ordered from the author at 1 Mill Cottage, Cackle Street, Brede, East Sussex.—E.W-W.

• The Lifeboat by Dick Bruna (Methuen Children's Books, £1.50) is one of a very successful series of little books by this author aimed at preschool children. Enchanting colour illustrations help tell the simple story of a man going to sea and having to be rescued by the kind lifeboatmen.—G.P.

• On Sunday July 31, 1983, a louring, overcast day on the south coast of England, with wind scarcely strong enough to propel a sailing boat, suddenly erupted into a violent thunderstorm, flattening an estimated 50 dinghies in the ensuing squalls and sending out no fewer than seven lifeboats from stations between Portsmouth and Newhaven on rescue missions.

The fickleness of the weather around our shores and how to read the signs of any imminent change, often far more subtle than the one described above, is just part of Alan Watts' interesting and clearly written Dinghy and Board Sailing Weather (Nautical Books, Macmillan, £8.95), recently published. For the beginner, with a weather eye to his or her own comfort and safety, the book explains what the TV forecasters really mean when they say 'there will be sunny intervals' and also teaches him how torecognise from the advancing clouds, signs of what changes are likely to take place.

For the proficient and downright competitive dinghy and board sailors, Alan Watts delves deeper and deeper into the technicalities of wind and the reasons for its shifting or dropping, often just at the most crucial stage of a race. Every possible angle is examined with inland water and estuary wind behaviour investigated as thoroughly as coastal conditions. This is certainly a book for the sailor who has begun to master the handling of his craft and who now wishes, if not to master, at least to anticipate the weather. But any book that can educate the novice sailor about weather—surely the most talked about and least well understood subject of these isles—must improve his enjoyment and help to ensure his safety.— E.W-W.

• This is Boat Handling at Close Quarters by Dick Everitt, who planned the book and drew the illustrations, and Rodger Witt, who wrote the text, is one of those invaluable books which help the inexperienced to think through on land the problems they may expect to meet afloat, and thus be all the better prepared to handle their boats in a seamanlike manner when emergencies beset them. It is all the more necessary to have such advance understanding of the possible, and variable, effects of current and tidal stream, wind and lee, boat shape and propeller thrust because these uncertain factors will undoubtedly first be encountered within the confines of a harbour, river or crowded anchorage; it is from such an environment, fraught with hazard, that the new owner will surely have to extricate his boat before he can settle down to becoming acquainted with her in the peace of open water.

The authors emphasise, however, that there is nothing definitive about either natural forces or boat behaviour; each gust of wind, each tidal eddy may have its own whim, while each boat will have her own individual characteristics.

Good boat handling, which has a great satisfaction all its own, is as much an art as a science so that no amount of theoretical knowledge can ever replace perception, patience and practice.

The techniques described and clearly illustrated in this book are derived from numerous delivery skippers, lifeboat coxswains and experienced yachtsmen.

The book is published by Nautical Books, Macmillan, price £10.95, and donations from its royalties will be made to cancer research in memory of Richard Creagh-Osborne, that splendid yachtsman and writer who was originally associated with the book.—J.D.

• Boat Building Techniques Illustrated by Richard Birmingham (Adlard Coles, Granada, £12.50) is an excellent book written in a manner which retains the reader's interest although the title would have been more accurate if it had been prefixed by 'wooden'. The author is obviously very skilled in boatbuilding and is familiar with most if not all the tricks of the trade. A deficiency is a chapter on lofting, detailing laying down and the benefits obtained in the form of templates and patterns, but how refreshing it is to hear of a sanding plane still recommended for finishing a hull.—A.W.

• Two new books, recently published, will certainly become standard works in the field of the design and construction of small boats. The Design of Sailing Yachts by Pierre Gutelle (Nautical Books, Macmillan, £15.95) is one of the best books of its type to appear in recent years. It is translated from the French by Barbara Webb, being updated in the process, and the author covers the whole subject of yacht design, from basic principles, in a manner which is both easy to read yet relays exactly the right degree of technical complexity. It is particularly refreshing to see such controversial subjects as stability and hull balance explained in such detail, and the book offers much to the owner, student or professional alike.

The Offshore Yacht by A. T. Thornton (Adlard Coles, Granada, £17.50) nicely complements the book by Pierre Gutelle. From a basis of the naval architecture of yacht design, the author goes on to delve deeply into construction methods, including the latest materials now available for the hull, the sailplan, deck fittings, interior design, propulsion and even electronics in a manner which relays considerable information, and gives the owner/designer/ builder plenty of food for thought.

Fashions in boats may change, but the basic principles will always remain.

These two books will surely find a useful place on many a designer's bookshelf.

—K.C.T.

• Ask any small boy what he wants to do when he has grown up, and after saying engine driver, fireman and policeman he will probably say a lighthouse keeper—all, to a small boy, highly adventurous occupations. All those small boys who have since grown up, can now relive their dreams of lighthouse keeping by reading Rock Lighthouses of Britain by Christopher Nicholson (Patrick Stephens Ltd, £12.95).

With its first chapter headed 'Out of the darkness', this excellent book, wellillustrated with generous, varied photographs and clear drawings, provides enough facts and information to keep the most inquisitive readers happy. It also recounts some of the drama, too; such as the time the Chicken Rock Lighthouse, south of the Isle of Man, caught fire on December 23, 1960. To escape the flames the three keepers slid down 100 feet of rope to the base of the lighthouse. After a long and difficult rescue operation, involving two lifeboats and a helicopter from RAF Valley, all three lighthouse keepers were rescued and taken to safety.

An appendix gives a detailed description of the major British rock lighthouses built and maintained by Trinity House or the Northern Lighthouse Board.—S.J.G.

• At first sight, a book entitled Faster! Faster! and concerned to a great extent with multihulls, hydrofoils and the like, might not appear to have much bearing on saving life at sea, but speed has always been a vital factor in the safe accomplishment of a rescue and advances in any one branch of boat design can but add to the sum total of knowledge on which all can draw.

Maintaining that speed is one of man's most enduring obsessions, David Pelly, the author of Faster! Faster! (Nautical Books, Macmillan, £9.95) traces the development of ever swifter boats from the earliest days of progress under sail. Into this pattern he fits the Suffolk beach yawls, the fast pilot boats of the nineteenth century, which, owned by the beach companies at Lowestoft, England's most easterly point, would . . .

'. . . dash out to passing vessels to offer pilotage, supplies, mail or salvage as appropriate and naturally, the first boat on the scene got the business . . . in the estimation of their crews . . . the yawls were the fastest working boats in existence.' It was a Lowestoft yawl, Frances Ann made 'unimmergible' by Lionel Lukin in the early years of the century, which was the world's first sailing lifeboat and the forerunner of the Norfolk and Suffolk type lifeboat.

Perhaps we should also remember the contribution to lifesaving of such men as Uffa Fox who, in the 1930s with Bill Waight, went cruising to Brittany in the 20ft twin sliding seat canoe Brynhild, one of the fastest of small thoroughbred sailing boats; a very individual choice for cruising, maybe, but Brynhild was later to be the prototype for the airborne lifeboats which, during the Second World War, were dropped from aircraft to ditched aircrews.

Anyone who has enjoyed dinghy, multihull, keelboat or offshore racing during the past half century will find much in this book over which to ponder in happy reminiscence; the people are old friends, their achievements part of our heritage. Perhaps not many of us can follow into the more rarefied airs of the Portland Speed Weeks or of the 60ft Crossbow II which, designed by Roderick MacaJpine-Downie, achieved 36 knots in 1980. But, nevertheless, it is all very interesting. The last words on the back cover of the book are: 'How much faster to go . . .' How much indeed.— J.D.

• Shanties from the Seven Seas have been collected into a comprehensive book by Stan Hugill (Routledge and Kegan Paul, £7.95)..