Royal visitor to the depot and headquarters HRH The Princess Royal visited the RNLI during a brief visit to Poole on 30 November 1989.

Despite a very tight schedule, which meant she could only spend some 45 minutes with the Institution, the Princess toured the depot and workshop buildings before seeing the operations room, the fund raising department and the hull drawing office at headquarters. Her Royal Highness was greeted by the Chairman of the Institution, Mr Michael Vernon, and the Deputy Director, Mr Ray Kipling, who conducted her on her tour.

The Princess stopped to talk to several members of staff in both buildings and expressed a keen interest in the work of the RNLI. Before her departure Mr Vernon presented the Princess with a silk headscarf as a memento of her visit Newspoint A fine summer, but...

Although the final figures for 1989 were not available at the time of going to press the statistics for lifeboat services in 1989 are showing some interesting trends.

The number of services has been running slightly ahead of the 1988 figure for most of the year, and it is likely that 1989 will see as many, and possibly more, services than 1988 - itself an all-time record.

As might be expected the long, hot summer has produced a significant fall in the number of services carried out in strong winds, perhaps to as much as half of last year's number. However, despite, or perhaps because of, the good weather the lifeboats, and the Under-10m lifeboats in particular, have been very busy.

The number of lives saved by the inflatable or rigid inflatable C, D and Atlantic 21 class lifeboats at the end of November already exceeded those saved in the whole of the previous year.

There is no doubt that the trend is for the lifeboat fleet to be busier than ever, and saving an increasing number of lives, in good weather and bad.

'Lifeboat weather' is no longer confined to gales and storms, and the lifeboatmen's service is in great demand even through the best of summer weather. The Institution's 1990 AGM The 1990 annual meetings of the RNLI will be held on Tuesday, May 22 at the South Bank, London.

The governors' annual general meeting will take place in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at 1130, and the annual presentation of awards to lifeboatmen and honorary workers will be held at 1430 in the Royal Festival Hall.

All governors of the RNLI should find an application form for both meetings enclosed with this issue of THE LIFEBOAT.

Should any governor who wishes to attend the meetings not receive a form please write to The Director, RNLI, West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset BH15 1HZ.

There is no need to return the form if you will not be attending the meeting or do not wish to receive the annual report and accounts.

Branches and guilds will receive details of how to apply for tickets to the presentation of awards from their regional offices, and other supporters who wish to attend the presentation should write to the Director at the above address. Bequest funds new HQ building The contract for the new building to provide additional space at RNLI headquarters in Poole has been awarded to John Laing , and the £2m cost is to be met entirely from the £3.5m bequest of the late Mr Kenneth Thelwall.

Mr Thelwall's bequest, the largest bequest ever received by the Institution, has already funded two lifeboats, an Arun class, Kenneth Thelwall, stationed at Spurn Point on the Humber and a Tyne class, Kenneth Thelwall II currently under construction and destined for the relief fleet.

The RNLI had always intended that the cost of the additional building would not be met from funds raised by volunteers and commenting on the decision to fund the building from Mr Thelwall's bequest the Director, Lt Cdr Brian Miles, said: 'I am very conscious of the need to spend the RNLFs money wisely. By providing this new building now, we will be able to meet the increasing needs of the service into the next century. Thanks to Mr Thelwall's bequest, we will not need to use for this project any of the money which our volunteer fund raisers work so hard to collect.' Work began on the site on 6 November 1989 and is expected to continue until February 1991.

Due to the construction work car parking space at the Poole Headquarters is now very limited, and anyone planning a visit to Poole should ask about arrangements when they make an appointment to visit headquarters.

Open Days postponed One effect of the extensive building work at Poole is the postponement of the bi-annual Open Days which would normally have been held in July 1990.

With minimal car parking available and major construction work under way it has been decided that it would be unwise to hold the Open Days until the new building is complete.

The dates for the deferred Open Days will be published in THE LIFEBOAT. FAB progress The RNLI has placed an order for the hull, deck and superstructure of a prototype new Fast Afloat Boat (FAB). The order is due for completion at the end of March 1990 and it is anticipated that the boat will be fitted out and ready for trials and evaluation by early 1991.

The design, known as FAB 3, is intended to be in service in 1993 as a replacement for some Arun class lifeboats.

Although superficially similar to the Arun in appearance the new design is in fact very different. At 17m (55ft 9in) she is longer than the 52ft and 54ft Aruns, has a design speed of 25 knots (7 knots faster than the Arun) and has a different hull shape with bilge keels providing protection for the propellers.

Other features of the design include aftmounted engines with V-drives and an internal superstructure layout divided into two separate compartments - one for the crew and another for seated survivors. Construc- RNLI colours at Festival of Remembrance The RNLI was asked to participate in this year's Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance in the Royal Albert Hall, London in recognition of the vital work carried out by lifeboats during the years of hostilities.

Nineteen lifeboats took part in the Dunkirk evacuation and throughout the Second World War lifeboats responded to 2,212 ships or aircraft in distress which had been damaged by hostile forces, and between 1939 and 1945 rescued 6,376 people.

Thirteen lifeboatmen lost their lives, with three fatalities as a direct result of enemy action.

Robert Fossett, the 37-year-old helmsman of the Southend-on-Sea Atlantic 21 lifeboat and a Sub-Officer with the Essex Fire and Rescue Service was chosen to carry the RNLI's colours at the ceremony on the evening of 11 November 1989.

• Three lifeboatmen from Oban carried the RNLFs colours at the Annual National Service for Seafarers at St Paul's Cathedral on 11 October. William Melville, Malcolm Robertson and Michael Robertson are all members of the crew of the Oban lifeboat, currently the 33ft Brede class Nottinghamshire. tion is a form of fibre reinforced composite.

Design work on a smaller, 14m (46ft) fast afloat lifeboat (FAB 4), also with a design speed of 25 knots, is progressing well with a hull which is a 'geosim' (a naval architects acronym for 'geometrically similar') of FAB 3 - essentially a scaling-down of the larger boat's lines. Honours for lifeboat crews at awards ceremonies Lifeboat crews took two of the major awards at the Silk Cut Nautical Awards presentations at the Savoy Hotel, London on 23 November 1989.

An eight-man panel of judges, led by roundthe- world yachtsman Chay Blyth and including Lt Alan Tate staff officer (training) for the RNLI, decided that the National Rescue award should go to the Hayling Island Atlantic 21 lifeboat crew for their service to the 32ft yacht Dingaling which had been knocked down in appalling conditions off the entrance to Chichester Harbour.

Helmsman Frank Dunster had manoeuvred the lifeboat close to one casualty and crew member Graham Raines jumped into the water to support him. Crew member Rod James had then been swept overboard while attempting to recover Raines and the casualty.

Graham Raines was awarded the Institution's Bronze medal and five other lifeboatmen received Thanks on Vellum for their part in the service, which was covered in detail in the Spring 1989 issue of THE LIFEBOAT.

Some two weeks earlier Graham Raines had also received one of twelve Men of The Year awards at a lunch organised by the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR). The Seamanship Award also went to an RNLI crew - Coxswain Tommy Ralston and the crew of Mallaig's Arun class The Davina and Charles Matthews Hunter.

The award was for a service on 27 October 1988 when, in horrendous conditions the lifeboat saved the fishing vessel Galilean and her crew of two from a lee shore surrounded by submerged rocks.

The lifeboat traced the casualty's course downwind through the rocks in winds gusting to 75 knots and, towing from the bow, brought her to safety.

A full description of the service, for which coxswain Tommy Ralston was awarded the Institution's Bronze medal, appeared in the Summer 1989 issue of THE LIFEBOAT.

The awards, gold and glass commemorative plaques, were presented by former Conservative party chairman Norman Tebbitt. When third is more than enough The annual figures published by the Charities Aid Foundation place the RNLI third in its 1988 'league table' of voluntary income, behind Oxfam and The National Trust.

Although the Institution topped the list in 1987 slipping two positions in the table is of little relevance. As we said in the Winter 88/ 89 issue of The Lifeboat when putting the top-of-the-table position in perspective: 'what really counts is simply whether that money was sufficient to carry out the job the RNLI is required to do'.

Thanks to the magnificent efforts of the fund raisers the £37.75m which put the RNLI in third place was indeed sufficient for its needs, and in fact exceeded the Institution's target of £36m for the year. All are already working hard to meet the 1989 targets. NEWS IN BRIEF • The RNLI played a part in the opening of the Southampton International Boat Show in September, when the Tyne class lifeboat Sarah Emily Harrop escorted the dignitaries to the ceremony and remained alongside for the weekend, open to the public.

• Following Padstow's success in persuading Cornwall County Council to waive the fee for explosive licences for stations throughout Cornwall the honorary secretary at Torbay, Antony Smith, has had a similar success in Devon.

Stations in the county will now pay just a nominal 5p instead of £8.

• All stations operating outboardengined lifeboats have been informed that they can use 'green' unleaded fuel and, where possible, most are now using the cleaner, cheaper fuel..