Double crossed It is worth remembering that not every plan for raising funds through sponsorship, however well laid, ends in success.

The following is a letter sent to Andrew Young, regional organiser, south west, by two disappointed (but prudent) windsurfers after an unconventional and luckless attempt to ship back Beaujolais Nouveau to Britain last November:— It occurred to me today that possibly no one had let you know the details of our aborted tandem windsurfer crossing of the English Channel. Despite spending the week prior to the proposed crossing spying out possible launch and landing spots on both sides of the channel and despite smoothing the way through all the red tape of Customs, Harbour Authorities, Immigration and the Coastguard, we were let down in the end by the weather.

On Tuesday November 19, two days before the Beaujolais was due to be released, we left Dover for France in appalling conditions, snow, ice and a force 6 north-easterly. The ferry crossing was in the dark but it did highlight another problem, the lack of wind under the lee shore of the Pas de Calais.

If this wind persisted, which it did, it would mean setting off in almost nil wind conditions and smooth waters which gradually would build necessitating several sail changes - a dangerous situation in mid-channel.

Nevertheless, we set the ball in motion and two of the team set off by car for Macon to collect the BeaujolaisNouveau. At 11.00 pm on the Wednesday night in appalling conditions they hit black ice on the motorway and wrote off their vehicle as well as our press coverage, the BBC, in the following car.

Even without the wine, we would still have gone but for the terrible cold. We knew that if we fell in a few times and became tired we would soon be suffering from hypothermia with little possiblity of revival. The captain of our 140 HP rigid inflatable support boat rightly refused to back any move to give it a go after experiencing the conditions on the previous day in a trial outing.

We always realised that there was only a 50/50 chance of doing it and perhaps we may dream up another venture to support the RNLI. We would like to extend our thanks to you and your organisation for all your help and backing. - TONY BARTHO AND STEPHEN COOMBS, Clifton, Bristol.

Back tracking In the winter 1985/86 number of THE LIFEBOAT a photograph shows a lifeboat on its carriage with a team of horses.

One of my earliest memories is a similar boat at Llandudno in 1908 (dateable by family tradition as I broke my collarbone jumping off the jetty not to be beaten by my older sister. I was born in September 1904). This Llandudno boat's carriage had a considerable number of wide shoes bolted loosely through the rims of the wheel to prevent them sinking into the sand. An earlier form of the tank track used in the 1914-18 War?—REUBEN REYNOLDS, West Mersea, Essex..