On the outside of the lifeboat station was a board recording the number of launches, people assisted and so on. 'That's the important one', said a crew member, pointing to 45 lives saved. Only the sharp shadow of his hand cast across the board by the strong February afternoon sun reminded me that this was South Africa; in all other respects - the dedication, pride in the job, the good humour and camaraderie - this could have been an RNLI lifeboat station.

South Africa's National Sea Rescue Institute celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. From very humble beginnings of a 4.7 metre inflatable at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town, the NSRl now boasts 50 rescue craft at 25 bases. All the crews are volunteers and the NSRl is proud to be one of South Africa's oldest organisations that can claim a non-racial and non-sexist history. The first woman to be a coxswain (RNLI helmsman) of an ILB is Keryn van der Walt at Port Alfred on the east coast and she is also a deputy coxswain of the larger 8 metre boat at the station. The crews take their duties very seriously and undergo regular training ashore and afloat.

There are two stark differences between the RNLI and NSR1 stations.

The first is the equipment. The NSRl, operating on a budget of less than £1 million a year, has followed a policy of using rigid inflatabies for much of the rescue work backed by larger boats, mainly adapted commercial fishing hulls. These provide very sturdy and reliable craft but need careful handling in the rough Indian and Atlantic Ocean seas as they have well decks which, if flooded, can take on three tons of water. The boats are not self-righting and in the waterlogged state can be vulnerable. Nonetheless, the crews have great faith in their boats and have performed some outstanding rescues.

In the last four years, the RNLI has sold three Brede class lifeboats to NSRl and the crews are full of admiration for them. They only wish they could get more.

Many of the rescues point out the other huge difference between lifeboating in Europe and South Africa. Apart from in the Cape Town area, the distances between bases in South Africa are often over 80 miles. This means that the boats have no back up, either from flank stations or, in most cases, from the air. They are on their own and have to cover many miles along the coast and out to sea. This gives the crews a frontiersman approach to their work, battling against tremendous odds for prolonged periods and knowing that they have to be entirely self dependent.

As always, local knowledge is the key to their success. Going across the harbour bar at Port Alfred on a relatively cairn day is quite fun as the boat dodges through the breaking swells.

Coming back on a dark night in a storm would be a much less pleasant experience as any mistake could land the boat on the beach at the base of 20 metre high sand dunes.

Similarly, the high cliffs, known as the Heads, which part to form the entrance to Knysna, form an approach which is like a cross between Saicombe and Newton Ferrers, with two bars running across. The Heads are so dangerous that the rescue base has a communications hut on top of them to keep an eye on the rescue boat and to pass advice to visiting vessels. When the South African navy visits Knysna, they call on the lifeboat crew to act as their pilots. Knysna's 8 metre boat has an extended transom to take two 225hp outboards which can take her up to 45 knots in the calm of the river. Between the heads it is a different story as the coxswain plays his throttles constantly in response to the confused seas.

As with the RNLI, the NSRI has a wide variety of work to assist merchant ships, fishing boats and leisure sea users. In one February week I saw the RIB at Plettenburg Bay launch to take a sick fisherman off a trawler, talked to the Gordon's Bay crew about a ten hour service to assist a yacht in their new Brede and learned of two tragedies involving the Cape Town crew who were called to help a seriously ill fisherman only to find he had died on board the trawler. Then a week later they went out to a diver who had the bends having surfaced from 50 metres and who died before he could be got into a decompression chamber. Within two weeks of arriving at Port Elizabeth an ex- RNLI Brede was called out over 20 miles to two merchant vessels which had collided, leaving one with a huge gash in her bow.

The RNLI is very much a model for the South African service, not surprisingly given its origins.

During the Second World War, Miss Pattie Price, a British woman living in South Africa, decided to establish a Southern Africa branch of the RNLI with the object of raising money for new lifeboats.

She was so successful that three lifeboats were bought and served in the RNLI fleet for many years at Dover, Fowey and Beaumaris.

Curiously one of the boats was sold out of service to the voluntary lifeboat service in Chile where she still serves at Valparaiso.

Pattie Price was made an honorary life governor of the RNLI for her efforts but was not content to let matters rest there. In 1966 the whole crew Of 17 drowned when a trawler went down off Stillbaai, close to Cape Aghullas, the southernmost tip of Africa. There was nobody to rescue them and Pattie Price started a campaign to set up a rescue service. A meeting was convened by the Society of Master Mariners who provided the first rescue craft and the NSRI was born.

Funding nowadays is a constant struggle. A very small government grant is received but the remainder must be found from a minority of South Africa's 50 million population who have enough disposable income to be able to support charities: Fundraising is also extremely competitive as the calls on the public and commerce alike are huge. With so much attention on housing, education and other projects, it would be easy for the vital task of sea rescue to sink without trace if it were not for the determined efforts of the NSRI staff, directors and volunteers. You will see a factory roof, adjacent to the main road, with the NSRI logo emblazoned on it. Bus shelters in Cape Town carry Sea Rescue posters. The only collecting box at the airport is for Sea Rescue. Public awareness is vital for the Institute's survival and it is noteworthy that the abbreviation NSRI is used by journalists who can safely assume that their readers will know about the organisation.

After 30 years, South Africa's lifeboat service is well established and constantly planning improvements. They have the people and the skills - what they really need is money..