75 years ago From The Life-Boat of 1920 The great difficulty in the way of Life-boat launches on flat beaches is the difficulty of the horses. It is becoming increasingly hard to get the use of horses and the men to manage them, and they have frequently to be brought long distances, with consequent delay, and the cost of hiring is rapidly becoming prohibitive. If we can find a mechanical means for launching and get rid of this uncertain element, we shall greatly increase the efficiency, certainty and speed of the Service.

It was with this idea in mind that the Committee of Management decided at its Meeting in January to experiment with a caterpillar tractor... a35h. p. Clayton Caterpillar Tractor which had already shown its ability to work over all sorts of land and under any conditions of weather...

We selected Hunstanton for the trials because we should there find every variety of beach. The trials lasted for five days and were a great success...

She was first taken over the flat sandy beach, then over the sand dunes above high water mark, and finally over some rocky ground, during which operation she mounted a rock with a perpendicular face, 1 ft. Join, sheer in height, attaining an angle of some 60° from the horizontal, and dropping heavily on reaching the maximum balance on the fore part of her tracks. It was a test calculated to bring out any possible defect in her construction, and to the surprise of us all she did no damage to herself whatever...

We tried a launch and although the tide was flowing fast the carriage was easily pushed into the water until it attained a depth of 2 ft. 6in. and the tractor 2 ft. I considered this quite enough for the experiments I had in view and gave the order to launch. Unfortunately however the Coxswain did not share my opinion, and did not slip the pole. This proved unfortunate, as, of course, the tractor had not been adapted forwater.. .with the result that the tractor threw the water with her flywheel over her sparking plugs causing the motor to stop. An immediate attempt was made to restart her, but unsuccessfully, and with the rising tide there was nothing to be done but salve the magneto. This was successful, and the mechanic and the Deputy Surveyor of Machinery were "rescued" from the bonnet of the tractor by the Life-boat. Half-an-hour later the tractor and Life-boat carriage were totally submerged.

(Editor's note: the tractor was successfully retrieved - by 70 to 80 willing hands at the next low water and restarted - once the cylinders had been emptied of sea water!) .. .the trials at Hunstanton amply proved the value of the tractor on open sandy beaches. They showed that she could move the Life-boat over difficult ground, quickly and surely, and that in order to make her "seaworthy" it is only necessary to arrange for the carburettor and magneto to be arranged in water-tight compartments, for water-tight terminals on the plugs, for a guard to be fitted to the fly-wheel and for the exhaust to be carried above the bonnet. The tractor proved easy to drive. Those of us who were used to cars fell into it at once, while even those who had not driven a motor vehicle before, picked it up very quickly….