Books . . .

• In 1983 was published the first part of the late Grahame Farr's comprehensive Lists of British Lifeboats, covering non self-righting, pulling and sailing boats from 1775 to 1916. Before his death later that year, Mr Farr, former honorary archivist of the Lifeboat Enthusiasts' Society, had also completed the preparation of Part 2 of this important work of reference, covering selfrighting, pulling and sailing lifeboats from 1851 to 1918. This second part thus picks up the record of early lifeboats in the year in which the Duke of Northumberland offered a prize for the best design of a self-righting lifeboat.

Considerably longer than Part 1, Lists of British Lifeboats Part 2: Self-righting, Pulling and Sailing Lifeboats, 1851 to 1918, has now been published. It is available from Mrs E. M. Farr, 98 Combe Avenue, Portishead, Bristol BS20 9JX, price £3.50 including postage and packing anywhere in the UK.—J.D.

• The latest addition to Jeff Morris' collection of station history booklets is The Story of the Wick and Ackergill Lifeboats. As with all its predecessors the booklet is well researched, written and illustrated with many historic and modern photographs. Two clear, diagrammatic maps, showing all the local landmarks along the coast, enable the reader to follow the course taken on all the Wick or Ackergill lifeboat services recounted.

There has been a lifeboat at Wick since 1848, when a boat was provided by the British Fishery Society. Two years earlier than that a lifeboat propelled by two paddle-wheels amidships had been built; early trials showed her to be fairly manoeuvrable, but she was later found to be difficult to propel into a breaking surf.

The first RNLI lifeboat at Ackergill was established there following a violent storm in December 1876 when nine men lost their lives; before that time lifeboat cover had been provided by taking a lifeboat overland from Wick.

The Ackergill station was closed in 1932. Connections between the two stations have always been closely interwoven, and it is therefore fitting that their stories should be told in one book.

Copies are available from Mr A.

Anderson, Shiloh, Riverside Drive, Janetstown, Wick, Caithness, price £1.00 plus 25 pence postage and packing.—S.J.G.

• Having spent many happy hours at Hunstanton while on holiday in Norfolk as a child, Theo Stibbons' book, The Hunstanton Lifeboats (Poppyland Publishing), brought back many personal memories. The book, however, will bring back many more memories than my own; there will still be people in Hunstanton who remember the launching of the lifeboats when the carriage was drawn by horses and who must also remember the first tractor trials held by the RNLI in 1920. The trials were held over five days and the beach at Old Hunstanton proved to be the ideal spot to hold them as flat sand, sand dunes and rocky ground could all be found in the area.

All went well until a lifeboat launch was attempted. As the tractor had not been adapted for use in water, the carburettor, magneto, sparking plugs and ignition were all exposed and as salt water came into contact with them the motor stopped; within 30 minutes the lifeboat carriage and tractor were totally submerged by the rising tide. However, after it had been recovered from the sea and dried out the tractor moved off Letters from page 131 caravan, even if we could afford one.

We thought of trying to purchase a secondhand market stall, but these are too substantial for the job.

We wonder if any branch has solved the problem by either buying or making a temporary stall which can easily be erected and transported by ladies. We would welcome suggestions.—DAVID SPENCER, chairman, Teignmouth branch, Devon.

Long odds Each year in Sennen Cove we have a raffle for which the main prize is a gallon bottle of whisky. In 1983 all 20,000 tickets, costing just a few pence, were sold, mostly to visitors to our lifeboathouse, and £800.60 was raised.

In 1984 the price of the ticket was lifted slightly. Only 18,500 tickets were sold but once again a handsome profit was made: £1,058.36.

What are the odds on the result? In 1983 Mrs M. R. Harding of Bath won the gallon, the eighth ticket out of the barrel. Last year, the eighth ticket out of the barrel had been purchased by— guess who? Mrs M. R. Harding of Bath.

At the time I did not realise the incredible coincidence. Only the lady's telephone call brought the matter to my notice.

To make our draw night a social success, we perform the ceremony at the First and Last Inn at Sennen.

Thanks to the generosity of the landlady, Mrs Rose Sima, we had a super evening. There was a pastie competition.

Members of the crew, the shore helpers and committee (men only) baked special pasties, with a small entry fee going to the RNLI.

Lightning does strike in the same place twice, it would seem! Pity it did not strike my pastie.—JAMES SUMMERLEE, chairman, Sennen Cove branch, Cornwall.

under its own power. By the end of the year the essential parts of the engine had been made watertight and further successful trials held. Twenty tractors were ordered, the first going on station at Hunstanton early in 1921.

This incident is just one of the many in Hunstanton's long lifeboat history, which falls into three parts: 1824 to 1843, 1867 to 1931 and from 1979 to 1984. The first RNLI lifeboat was placed there in 1867 and was called Licensed Victualler. The book follows the station's history from its beginnings, right up to the present day lifeboat, the Atlantic 21 rigid inflatable Spirit of America. The book is well illustrated with photographs of past and present lifeboats, and many of the services carried out by the station's crews are recounted. Copies can be obtained from the honorary secretary, Mr D.

McLeod, Park House, Old Hunstanton, Norfolk, PE36 6JS, price £1.20 plus 25p postage and packing.—S.J.G.

• All the romance and the realism of the coastal trade in Thames spritsail sailing barges is to be found in Coasting Bargemaster by Bob Roberts, reprinted after 35 years by Mallard Reprints, Water Street, Lavenham, Sudbury, Suffolk (£6.95). It is written by a seaman of great skill who had spent his long years as a boy, mate and master under sail in complete contentment; he would have chosen no other life. Moreover, the tale is told with all the ease of a man who must surely have spent days, waiting for storms to abate or for a favourable shift of wind, yarning with his fellow bargemen in familiar dockside hostelries.

As well as the good days, Bob Roberts tells of havoc wrought by barges caught out in severe gales and of rescues by East Anglian lifeboats. The book ends with the loss of the boomrigged ketch barge Martinet, of which he was the master. One pitch black wartime night off a shore heavily protected against invasion, Martinet started making water fast and, with no chance of reaching port, foundered. Happily, however, her distress flares were seen and Aldeburgh's second lifeboat, called by the station the 'summer boat', was able to reach the crew in time.—J.D.

• Yachtsmen (and especially those who write book reviews) have been asking for a number of years why the publishers of nautical almanacs each year reprint, in addition to the everchanging ephemerides and tide tables, the same old chapters on subjects which never change, or change little over the years, and could be reprinted every five years or so.

Well, with the Macmillan and Silk Cut Nautical Almanac it has happened! The price of the 1985 Almanac has fallen marginally to £10.50 and it has got thinner. But look at the price of the companion Macmillan and Silk Cut Yachtsman's Handbook (£14.95) the cynics will say: you don't get muchchange from £26 for the complete package.

In fairness to the publishers, and assuming that the handbook will last five years, it should be pointed out that only £3 of this should be counted in this year's budget making £13.50. Moreover, the almanac has been expanded within its revised brief to include additional items, in particular details of a further 180 small harbours and anchorages between the Loire and the Elbe, and, secondly, the handbook contains many new features which did not appear in the almanac, notably the chapters on hulls, spars, rigging, ropes and sails, deck gear, engines and electrics, below-deck items, boat-handling and running a boat.

If I had a criticism of the handbook, this would be over the inclusion of Dr Sadler's sight-reduction tables in the chapter on astro-navigation. I believe that if the publishers offered a substantial prize to anyone who can prove that he has used these tables at sea in the last five years, their money would be quite safe.—K.M.

• Oh no, I said, not another selfcongratulatory saga of feats of ocean navigation, as I fluttered through the pages of Modern Ocean Cruising by Jimmy Cornell (Adlard Coles, Granada, £8.95). And then I started to read a page here and there . . . and then I turned back to page 1 and started to read and did not stop until I had read it from cover to cover. As I put the book down, I noted, for the first time, its sub-title: 'Boats, Gear and Crews Surveyed', which should, perhaps, have been the title in the first place.

This is the most fascinating distillation of the wisdom of the real ocean wanderers compiled by one of their number. Before taking any notice of opinions on the type of boat to choose for cruising, the author set a limit to the qualification to have an opinion as having sailed a minimum of 2,000 miles in three months or more (62 boats).

For the more general subjects: living afloat, seamanship, navigation, children and pets aboard, hazards, planning and the lot of 'seawives' in cruising yachts, a more rigorous criterion was set; opinions were recorded only from boats which had been cruising continuously for at least a year and covered a minimum of 5,000 miles from base (50 boats). The author has treated the answers he got statistically so that the reader can benefit from the majority view and not be misled by personal ideas of the few.

If you are thinking of leaving the rat-race, selling up, buying a boat and setting off round the world, you must buy this book.—K.M.

• When I was sailing round the world in 1958, a certain Sub-Lt Ouvry used to appear on my bridge from his electrical workshop from time to time possibly attracted by the laughter accompanying attempts to get various members of the crew to 'shoot the sun' and see how well they had done by instant plotting of position lines using the rapid sightreduction method. Did we plant a seed? Can this be the same . . . yes it is! And Philip Ouvry seems to have put together a good team with Pat Langley-Price.

Their earlier book Yachtmaster was well received by students for that RYA/DoT qualification and I am sure that this new book Ocean Yachtmaster—Celestial Navigation (Adlard Coles, Granada, £12.95) will meet with equal acclaim.

They have not included the 'instant fix' technique in their book with good reason; it requires special equipment like a siderial stopwatch and is well outside the syllabus for RYA/DoT Ocean Yachtmaster students at whom the book is directed. I hope, however, that they will not frighten off any student who opens the book at random and is confronted with such items as haversines, ABC or transverse tables which are also outside the RYA syllabus and which have been rendered obsolete for many years by the precomputed Alt-Az tables and the electronic calculator. Apart from this, the instruction is excellent.

As a supplement to the earlier publication Yachtmaster, Pat Langley-Price and Philip Ouvry have also produced Yachtmaster Exercises (Adlard Coles, Granada, £6.95). It comes with a copy of exercise chart 5055 and contains a well chosen selection of test questions and worked examples.—K.M.

• The VHF Yachtmaster pack produced by Adlard Coles (£9.95) and also prepared by Pat Langley-Price and Philip Ouvry, provides all the information required by a small craft VHF operator. A well laid out booklet contains step by step instructions which are all clearly demonstrated on the accompanying cassette tape. Every aspect of VHF communications which may be required has been dealt with, including the role of HM Coastguard and the Coast Radio Stations. The booklet also contains a comprehensive set of the various regulations and publications likely to be needed.

The booklet requires two minor amendments, one factual and the other for clarity. Firstly, the statement in the third paragraph on page 16 is somewhat premature as the HM Coastguard VHF DF installation programme is only partially complete. Some centres, mostly in the southern part of the United Kingdom, have access to two VHF direction finders, though it is planned to extend this facility to each rescue centre during the next two or three years. Secondly, the regulations on page 49 could be clarified by adding 'or to communicate with the port operations service' to sentence number 8.

The examples on the tape are straightforward with no opinions or comments and a thorough knowledge of its contents should benefit all users of the system.—K.W..